DETAILED ACTION
This is a response to Applicant’s submissions filed on 4/9/2026. Claims 1-3, 5-11 and 13-20 are pending.
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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 4/9/2026 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see pages 16-17, filed 3/27/2026, with respect to the rejection(s) of claim(s) 1, 9 and 17 under 35 U.S.C. § 102 have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of newly found prior art reference 2019/0064827.
It is noted that Applicant’s amendments to the claims have overcome the previous rejection under 35 U.S.C. 112.
It is noted that Applicant’s amendments to the claims have overcome the previous rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 101.
Information Disclosure Statement – Action Needed
The information disclosure statement submitted on 6/29/2026 has been reviewed and considered.
The listing of references in paragraphs 2-3 of the specification is not a proper information disclosure statement. 37 CFR 1.98(b) requires a list of all patents, publications, or other information submitted for consideration by the Office, and MPEP § 609.04(a) states, "the list may not be incorporated into the specification but must be submitted in a separate paper." Therefore, unless the references have been cited by the examiner on form PTO-892, they have not been considered.
Drawings
The amended drawings were received on 3/27/2026.
The drawings are objected to because the sheet numbers are not located at the top of the sheet in accordance with 37 CFR § 1.84(t). Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all of the figures appearing on the immediate prior version of the sheet, even if only one figure is being amended. The figure or figure number of an amended drawing should not be labeled as “amended.” If a drawing figure is to be canceled, the appropriate figure must be removed from the replacement sheet, and where necessary, the remaining figures must be renumbered and appropriate changes made to the brief description of the several views of the drawings for consistency. Additional replacement sheets may be necessary to show the renumbering of the remaining figures. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either “Replacement Sheet” or “New Sheet” pursuant to 37 CFR 1.121(d). If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
Specification
The amendments to the specification were received on 3/27/2026.
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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, 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) 1-3, 5-11 and 13-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Beth et al. (US 2022/0156665) in view of Goto et al. (US 2019/0064827), hereinafter Beth and Goto, respectively.
Regarding claims 1 and 9, Beth discloses a non-transitory computer readable medium having computer executable instructions for a material flow planning system that when executed by a processor performs the following steps comprising: receiving a first input (Beth; para. 64: the platform may provide a drop-down menu or other interface for selecting a mission type) of the material flow planning system including a plurality of core material flow elements (Beth; para. 64: a user may select from predetermined missions (collections of tasks) or parts thereof (tasks) supported by the platform 100 given available locations, manned or unmanned vehicles, etc.; para. 59: following the obtaining at 402, a vehicle is identified at 404, e.g., vehicle 102 is identified by the platform due to the coded information scanned and transmitted via the mobile application running on the operator's mobile phone. This may provide for the platform 100 to identify mission part(s) associated with the vehicle 102, as indicated at 406. For example, a predetermined mission may be planned for a manned vehicle, e.g., vehicle 102, on the basis of one or more factors present when the scanned code data is obtained by the platform 100. Non-limiting examples of the one or more factors include time, location, last mission, last mission status, mission imported from an external system, etc. By way of a non-limiting example, for a first mission of the day, manned vehicle 102 may be planned to perform a pickup and delivery of an asset, e.g., container 114, to another part of the location 100, per a business workflow or process from an external system, e.g., remote device 128. In such a scenario, the mission may be identified as having two parts at 406, i.e., a pickup part and a delivery part.; para. 60: routing data may be associated with a mission part, e.g., the picking part of the mission [i.e., the core material flows elements are mission parts associated with a vehicle which include data regarding pickups, drop-offs, locations thereof, and routes therebetween]); receiving a second input of the material flow planning system including a variable parameter that includes a status of each of the core material flow elements (Beth; para. 70: a compatibility check may take place after a mission has begun, e.g., based on subsequent requests received by the vehicle, real-time sensed data such as proximity to other vehicles, fuel capacity, memory or data storage capabilities, requests or offers for vehicle assistance, etc. In an events-based manner, a mission or part thereof may be modified or adjusted, such as creating a modified task or new task or subtask, while the mission is being performed.); associating the variable parameter with the plurality of core material flow elements (Beth; para. 69: a vehicle compatibility check, as indicated at 410, may take various forms, for example including an initial compatibility determination with respect to the vehicle selected as compared with the user input for a mission task, such as capability to perform a given task, availability to do so, or the ability to adequately communicate with other vehicle(s) that may be involved. One non-limiting example of such a compatibility check is a determination as to whether the vehicle is available, e.g., open in terms of scheduling, has sufficient power or payload capacity, adequate sensors, etc.); determining a plurality of composable material flow logic patterns from the application of the variable parameter to the plurality of core material flow elements (Beth; para. 60: the platform 100 may have access to data indicating a route 116 leading from vehicle 102 to container 114. This routing data may be associated with a mission part, e.g., the picking part of the mission … platform may choose a different or alternative route 126 for the vehicle 102 to complete its mission); and controlling physical movement of a vehicle through the environment by transmitting navigation instructions to a drive control subsystem of the vehicle based on the determined composable material flow logic patterns (Beth; para. 72: The platform 100 may communicate the routing data and other mission data to the unmanned vehicles).
Beth does not explicitly disclose the associating is performed by applying a known or unknown status to each of the core material flow elements to characterize each element according to whether its corresponding pick, drop, location, or route data is known or unknown.
Goto, in the field of endeavor (autonomous vehicle control), discloses applying a known or unknown status to an autonomous vehicle (Goto; fig. 3) to characterize the vehicle according to whether its corresponding pick, drop, location, or route data is known or unknown (Goto; para. 58: when there is only one candidate for the vehicle location, it is determined that the vehicle location is in a ‘determined state’. When the vehicle location cannot match to a link or in a state in which the vehicle location itself cannot be detected due to an error, etc., it is determined that the vehicle location is in an ‘unknown state’; para. 69: When the current vehicle location is in an unknown state in which the current vehicle location has not been able to be identified on any road, a planned travel route on which the vehicle travels from now on (a route to be predicted upon providing self-driving assistance) cannot be identified. Therefore, at S8, the CPU 41 sets the prediction to an ‘undetermined state (a state in which self-driving assistance based on a predicted route cannot be provided)’.).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, with a reasonable expectation of success, to have modified the determination that a vehicle is capable of performing a given task in the compatibility check of Beth to include determining that the vehicle is capable of self-driving based on whether its location is in a known or unknown state, as disclosed by Goto, to yield the predictable result of limiting the vehicles that are presented for task assignments to the vehicles that are capable of performing them.
Regarding claims 2 and 10, Beth, as modified, discloses the core material flow elements include data regarding a pick, drop, location, and route of the vehicle (Beth; paras. 59-60: for a first mission of the day, manned vehicle 102 may be planned to perform a pickup and delivery of an asset, e.g., container 114, to another part of the location 100 … the mission may be identified as having two parts at 406, i.e., a pickup part and a delivery part… the platform 100 may have access to data indicating a route 116 leading from vehicle 102 to container 114. This routing data may be associated with a mission part, e.g., the picking part of the mission).
Regarding claims 3 and 11, Beth, as modified, discloses the vehicle is an autonomous mobile robot (AMR) (Beth; para. 6: embodiments herein are applicable to any application involving coordination of autonomous and/or manned vehicles. Example and non-limiting embodiments include one or more of: industrial equipment; robotic systems (including at least mobile robots, autonomous vehicle systems, and/or industrial robots)).
Regarding claims 5 and 13, Beth, as modified, discloses the core material flow elements and the variable parameter are arranged as a pattern language for determining the composable material flow logic patterns (Beth; para. 64: the platform 100 may provide a user interface, e.g., as a web application graphical user interface (GUI) provided in an internet browser, to permit a user to build a workflow or streamline together multiple tasks for multiple agents for a mission into a template (“workflow”, “maneuver” and/or “mission”).), and wherein the steps further comprise: modeling a material flow for repeatable patterns of movement by the vehicle according to the pattern language (Beth; para. 65: The missions may be predetermined or preloaded into the system, e.g., using templates, which may be customized by end users (e.g., selecting different vehicles, mission tasks, etc.).).
Regarding claims 6, 14 and 19, Beth, as modified, discloses the pattern language is based on at least one indoor flow pattern of a factory or warehouse (Beth; para. 7: certain embodiments of the system provide an interface for accessing mapping, routing and scheduling data, including for use indoors; para. 183: Certain embodiments of the present disclosure may provide for optimization and automation of existing facilities, e.g., industrial ports, warehouses, etc.).
Regarding claims 7, 15 and 20, Beth, as modified, discloses the pattern language includes a collection of workflow templates for material movement which are used for determining a material workflow based on one or more combinations of the core material flow elements (Beth; para. 65: Beth; para. 65: The missions may be predetermined or preloaded into the system, e.g., using templates, which may be customized by end users (e.g., selecting different vehicles, mission tasks, etc.).).
Regarding claims 8 and 16, Beth, as modified, discloses applying the composable material flow logic patterns includes dynamically selecting one of a plurality of possible routes when a route is unknown, the one of the possible routes including a combination of the plurality of core material flow elements (Beth; para. 60: the platform 100 may have access to data indicating a route 116 leading from vehicle 102 to container 114. This routing data may be associated with a mission part, e.g., the picking part of the mission … platform may choose a different or alternative route 126 for the vehicle 102 to complete its mission so as to avoid other vehicles, e.g., vehicle 106, and zones that are prohibited, e.g., 118, 120. The platform 100 may then generate the routing data at 416 for the mission.; para. 59: the mission may be identified as having two parts at 406, i.e., a pickup part and a delivery part).
Regarding claim 17, Beth discloses a non-transitory computer readable medium having computer instructions executable by at least one processor to model a material flow using a pattern language (Beth; para. 64: the platform 100 may provide a user interface, e.g., as a web application graphical user interface (GUI) provided in an internet browser, to permit a user to build a workflow or streamline together multiple tasks for multiple agents for a mission into a template (“workflow”, “maneuver” and/or “mission”).), comprising: four core material flow elements, including pick data, drop data, location data, and route data of a material flow machine Beth; para. 64: a user may select from predetermined missions (collections of tasks) or parts thereof (tasks) supported by the platform 100 given available locations, manned or unmanned vehicles, etc.; para. 59: following the obtaining at 402, a vehicle is identified at 404, e.g., vehicle 102 is identified by the platform due to the coded information scanned and transmitted via the mobile application running on the operator's mobile phone. This may provide for the platform 100 to identify mission part(s) associated with the vehicle 102, as indicated at 406. For example, a predetermined mission may be planned for a manned vehicle, e.g., vehicle 102, on the basis of one or more factors present when the scanned code data is obtained by the platform 100. Non-limiting examples of the one or more factors include time, location, last mission, last mission status, mission imported from an external system, etc. By way of a non-limiting example, for a first mission of the day, manned vehicle 102 may be planned to perform a pickup and delivery of an asset, e.g., container 114, to another part of the location 100, per a business workflow or process from an external system, e.g., remote device 128. In such a scenario, the mission may be identified as having two parts at 406, i.e., a pickup part and a delivery part.; para. 60: routing data may be associated with a mission part, e.g., the picking part of the mission [i.e., the core material flows elements are mission parts associated with a vehicle which include data regarding pickups, drop-offs, locations thereof, and routes therebetween]); and a variable parameter including a status of at least one of the four core material flow elements (Beth; para. 70: a compatibility check may take place after a mission has begun, e.g., based on subsequent requests received by the vehicle, real-time sensed data such as proximity to other vehicles, fuel capacity, memory or data storage capabilities, requests or offers for vehicle assistance, etc. In an events-based manner, a mission or part thereof may be modified or adjusted, such as creating a modified task or new task or subtask, while the mission is being performed.), wherein the computer executable instructions cause the at least one processor to transmit navigation commands to a drive control subsystem of an autonomous mobile robot based on the modeled material flow (Beth; para. 72: The platform 100 may communicate the routing data and other mission data to the unmanned vehicles).
Beth does not explicitly disclose the variable parameter includes a known or unknown status of at least one of the four core material flow elements, wherein the known or unknown status characterizes whether the corresponding pick data, drop data, location data, or route data is known or unknown.
Goto discloses a variable parameter includes a known or unknown status of an autonomous vehicle (Goto; fig. 3), wherein the known or unknown status characterizes whether corresponding pick data, drop data, location data, or route data is known or unknown (Goto; para. 58: when there is only one candidate for the vehicle location, it is determined that the vehicle location is in a ‘determined state’. When the vehicle location cannot match to a link or in a state in which the vehicle location itself cannot be detected due to an error, etc., it is determined that the vehicle location is in an ‘unknown state’; para. 69: When the current vehicle location is in an unknown state in which the current vehicle location has not been able to be identified on any road, a planned travel route on which the vehicle travels from now on (a route to be predicted upon providing self-driving assistance) cannot be identified. Therefore, at S8, the CPU 41 sets the prediction to an ‘undetermined state (a state in which self-driving assistance based on a predicted route cannot be provided)’.).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, with a reasonable expectation of success, to have modified the determination that a vehicle is capable of performing a given task in the compatibility check of Beth to include determining that the vehicle is capable of self-driving based on whether its location is in a known or unknown state, as disclosed by Goto, to yield the predictable result of limiting the vehicles that are presented for task assignments to the vehicles that are capable of performing them.
Regarding claim 18, Beth, as modified, discloses the pattern language determines one or more composable material flow logic patterns (Beth; para. 64: the platform 100 may provide a user interface, e.g., as a web application graphical user interface (GUI) provided in an internet browser, to permit a user to build a workflow or streamline together multiple tasks for multiple agents for a mission into a template (“workflow”, “maneuver” and/or “mission”).), and a material flow for repeatable patterns of movement by a vehicle is determined according to the pattern language (Beth; para. 65: The missions may be predetermined or preloaded into the system, e.g., using templates, which may be customized by end users (e.g., selecting different vehicles, mission tasks, etc.).).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JOSEPH THOMPSON whose telephone number is (571)272-3660. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Thurs 9:00AM-3:00PM ET.
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/JOSEPH THOMPSON/Examiner, Art Unit 3665
/Erin D Bishop/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3665
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