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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 12/02/2025 is being considered by the examiner.
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.
Claim 11 is 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. Claim 11 recites “receiving a subscription request for the data.” It is unclear and thus indefinite as to what “subscription request” means. Appropriate correction is required.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(d):
(d) REFERENCE IN DEPENDENT FORMS.—Subject to subsection (e), a claim in dependent form shall contain a reference to a claim previously set forth and then specify a further limitation of the subject matter claimed. A claim in dependent form shall be construed to incorporate by reference all the limitations of the claim to which it refers.
The following is a quotation of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, fourth paragraph:
Subject to the following paragraph [i.e., the fifth paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112], a claim in dependent form shall contain a reference to a claim previously set forth and then specify a further limitation of the subject matter claimed. A claim in dependent form shall be construed to incorporate by reference all the limitations of the claim to which it refers.
Claim 11 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(d) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, 4th paragraph, as being of improper dependent form for failing to further limit the subject matter of the claim upon which it depends. Claim 11 requires “the service [to] store[] the received data until receiving a subscription request for the data.” However, claim 11 depends on claim 7, which recites that “a skill sending data to the service causes the service to forward the data to one or more recipients.” Thus, the requirements for sending the data appear to be in conflict between claim 11 and its base claim 7. Accordingly, claim 11 does not appear to further limit the subject matter of claim 7. Appropriate correction or explanation is required. Applicant may cancel the claim(s), amend the claim(s) to place the claim(s) in proper dependent form, rewrite the claim(s) in independent form, or present a sufficient showing that the dependent claim(s) complies with the statutory requirements.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claim 20 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. The claim does not fall within at least one of the four categories of patent eligible subject matter because claim 20 is directed to a “computer storage medium encoded with a computer program” without positively reciting any structural features. “Products that do not have a physical or tangible form…” are not directed to a statutory category. See MPEP § 2106.03. Here, claim 20 is directed to non-statutory subject matter because a computer storage medium does not necessarily have a physical or tangible form. See MPEP § 2106.03.II. To overcome the rejection, Applicant may wish to recite “A tangible non-transitory computer storage medium ….”
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(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.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1-6, 8, 10, 13-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) and (a)(2) as being anticipated by U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2022/0244708 to Guglielmo Gemignani (“Gemignani”).
Regarding claim 1:
A method (Gemignani discloses a method for controlling an apparatus by using a behavior tree. See Gemignani at Abstract.) comprising:
receiving a definition of a robotic behavior tree, wherein the robotic behavior tree comprises nodes, wherein leaf nodes of the robotic behavior tree are skills (Gemignani discloses that the control system of a robot is mapped to the behavior tree 100 (“receiving a definition of a robotic behavior tree”) and that the behavior tree 100 includes nodes, including nodes 116-1 to 116-6, 216, 217, 221, 222 (“leaf nodes”), and “skills” such as manipulating the object, moving the object, gripping the object, etc. See Gemignani at Pars. [0014], [0016], [0054] and Figs. 1 and 2.);
receiving a definition of a data flow graph that describes data connections between skills in the robotic behavior tree, wherein the data connections comprise data with one or more values (Gemignani discloses a “data flow, i.e., the rules indicating if and how data can be shared between different parts of the behavior tree” (“receiving a definition of a data flow graph that describes data connections between skills” and discloses that the each node includes a data element whose value can be changed (“data connections comprise data with one or more values”). See Gemignani at pars. [0081]-[0087].); and
executing a robotic process using the definition of the robotic behavior tree and the data flow graph, thereby causing the skills to communicate according to the definition of the data flow graph (Gemignani at Figs. 1 and 2 and pars. [0200]-[0236] discloses execution of tasks in behavior tree 100; see also pars. [0015]-[0021].).
Regarding claim 2, which depends on claim 1:
wherein the definition of the data flow graph describes data connections between skills and services (Nodes 116-1 to 116-6, 216, 217, 221, and 222 describe skills and services (e.g., node 216 describes the “service” “check backpack for free space” and node 217 describes the “skill” “pick item from shelf”). See Gemignani at Figs. 1 and 2 and pars. [0200]-[0236]. )
Regarding claim 3, which depends on claim 1:
wherein the definition of the data flow graph describes data connections between services (See disclosure regarding node 214, which includes a connection between a node “find item to pick” and node 216 “check backpack for free space.” See Gemignani at Figs. 2 and par. [0226].).
Regarding claim 4, which depends on claim 1:
wherein executing the robotic process comprises executing the behavior tree and data flow graph asynchronously (Gemignani discloses that access to a data element can be independent of the state of the node and that “control flow is generally independent of the data flow.” See Gemignani at pars. [0081]-[0082], and [0249]. Accordingly, Gemignani disclose the claimed executing asynchronously.).
Regarding claim 5, which depends on claim 4:
wherein an executive process executes the behavior tree, and a data process executes the data flow graph (As discussed above in clam 4, Gemignani discloses that the control flow is generally independent of the data flow. Accordingly, Gemignani discloses an “executive process” for the control flow and a “data process” for the data flow.)
Regarding claim 6, which depends on claim 1:
wherein causing the skills to communicate comprises passing data between skills on data connections that does not affect the execution of the skills in the behavior tree (Gemignani discloses that an action block can receive input data (“passing data between skills”) but the action block will not execute until preconditions are met (“does not affect the execution of the skills”). See Gemignani at par. [0025]. In addition, Gemignani discloses “resources can be independent in the sense that they can be used at least partially simultaneously, i.e., while moving the mobile base of a robot, the manipulator can also be moved.” See Gemignani at par. [0024]. Thus, Gemignani discloses situations in which passing data between skills does not affect execution of skills in the behavior tree.).
Regarding claim 8, which depends on claim 2:
wherein the service sending data to a skill does not affect the execution of the skill (See analysis in claim 6. See Gemignani at pars. [0024]-[0025].).
Regarding claim 10, which depends on claim 1:
wherein the data connections comprise data with one or more values of one or more datatypes (Gemignani discloses that the data elements can comprise constant values (constant “datatypes”) or have changing values (variable “datatypes”). Thus, Gemignani discloses “data connections comprise data with one or more values of one or more datatypes.” See Gemignani at pars. [0254]-[0255].).
Regarding claim 13, which depends on claim 1:
wherein upon receiving data on a data connection, an expression evaluation engine is configured to unpack the data, and before the data is sent on a data connection, an expression evaluation engine is configured to pack the data (Gemignani discloses that the data element indicator for a node can be a “reference to a data element.” See Gemignani at par. [0083]. As it a “reference” and not the actual value, the “reference” needs to be evaluated to determine the value of the data element. Thus, Gemignani discloses the claimed “expression evaluation engine.” In addition, a child node will return a message (e.g., SUCCESS, FAILURE, RUNNING) to the patent node concerning its status. See Gemignani at pars. [0036] and[0203]. The evaluation of this message also reads on the claimed “expression evaluation engine.”).
Regarding claim 14, which depends on claim 13:
wherein unpacking the data or packing the data comprises transforming one or more of the values in the data from one datatype to another datatype, extracting a subset of the one or more values in the data, or evaluating one or more values in the data (See analysis in claim 13.)
Regarding claim 15, which depends on claim 1:
wherein the definition of the data flow graph comprises a priority for one or more of the data connections (Gemignani discloses that the tasks performed by the nodes, which will include the corresponding data element, can be ranked by priority. See Gemignani at par. [0214].).
Regarding claim 16, which depends on claim 1:
wherein the definition of the data flow graph comprises a permission or a frequency for one or more of the data connections (Gemignani discloses that specific data elements can be passed between certain nodes (“permission … for one or more of the data connections ”) but may be available globally. Thus, Gemignani discloses the claimed “permission.” See Gemignani at par. [0082].Gemignani discloses the claimed frequency for one or more of the data connections. See Gemignani at pars. [0071]-[0077].)
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.
Claims 7, 9, and 11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gemignani.
Regarding claim 7, which depends on claim 2:
wherein a skill sending data to the service causes the service to forward the data to one or more recipients (Gemignani discloses use of a behavior tree for “switching between and/or executing different tasks in an autonomous agent, such as a robot.” See Gemignani at pars. [0015] and [0023]. Gemignani also discloses that some nodes can be configured to pass values through (“forward the data to one or more recipients”). See Gemignani at par. [0087]. Thus, the disclosure in Gemignani renders obvious the use of a behavior tree with nodes to execute different tasks such as the claimed sequence of operation. For example, Gemignani at par. [0226]-[0231] and Fig. 2 describes a sequence of operation that discloses or renders obvious the claimed sequence. Specifically, Gemignani discloses a “skill” node 217 picking up an item from a shelf and a “service” node 219 that checks to see if it the target item and then the data is sent to “recipient” node 220 for execution. Accordingly, Gemignani discloses the claim 7. To the extent it is argued that Fig. 2 does not explicitly disclose the claimed sequence of operation, it would have been obvious and one skilled in the art would have been motivated to configure Gemignani’s behavior tree to execute a desired task (including the claimed sequence of operation) to perform different tasks in an autonomous agent as suggested by Gemignani. See Gemignani at pars. [0015] and [0023]. Because Gemignani discloses the use of nodes that pass through data and execute tasks (both service and skill), there would have been a reasonable chance of success. See MPEP § 2143.I.G.
Regarding claim 9, which depends on claim 3:
wherein the service sending data to a second service causes the second service to forward the data to one or more recipients (Gemignani discloses use of a behavior tree for “switching between and/or executing different tasks in an autonomous agent, such as a robot.” See Gemignani at pars. [0015] and [0023]. Gemignani also discloses that some nodes can be configured to pass values through (“forward the data to one or more recipients”). See Gemignani at par. [0087]. Thus, the disclosure in Gemignani renders obvious the use of a behavior tree with nodes to execute different tasks such as the claimed sequence of operation. For example, Gemignani at par. [0226]-[0231] and Fig. 2 describes a sequence of operation that discloses or renders obvious the claimed sequence. Specifically, Gemignani discloses a “service” node 214 sending data to a “second service” node that “find[s] item to pick” that forwards the data to “recipient” node 215. Accordingly, Gemignani discloses claim 9. To the extent it is argued that Fig. 2 does not explicitly disclose the claimed sequence of operation, it would have been obvious and one skilled in the art would have been motivated to configure Gemignani’s behavior tree to execute a desired task (including the claimed sequence of operation) to perform different tasks in an autonomous agent as suggested by Gemignani. See Gemignani at pars. [0015] and [0023]. Because Gemignani discloses the use of nodes that pass through data and execute tasks (both service and skill), there would have been a reasonable chance of success. See MPEP § 2143.I.G.).
Regarding claim 11, which depends on claim 7:
wherein upon the service receiving data without a corresponding recipient, the service stores the received data until receiving a subscription request for the data (Gemignani discloses ranking tasks based on priority and that low priority tasks wait on the high priority tasks. See Gemignani at par. [0124]. That is, Gemignani discloses that a node (e.g., a service node with lower priority task) holds onto (stores) the data until a second node that executes the task (recipient) is required to do so. Accordingly, the disclosure in Gemignani discloses the claimed data storage.).
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 12 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gemignani in view of U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2019/0086894 to Moritz Tenorth (“Tenorth”).
Regarding claim 12, which depends on claim 1:
wherein the definition of the data flow graph comprises how skills in the behavior tree operate if one or more of the values in the data are undefined (Gemignani incorporates the disclosure of WO 2017/148830, which is a related application to Tenorth. See Gemignani at par. [0006]. The main embodiments in Gemignani disclose the use of status indicators “success,” ”failure,” and ”running” for nodes when implementing the behavior tree. See Gemignani at par. [0019]. Gemignani does not explicitly disclose how the behavior tree should operate when the data are undefined. However, in a same filed of endeavor, using a behavior tree to control a robot (and thus analogous art), Tenorth discloses that a “state invalid may be assumed by a node when a node has not been initialized yet and connections to e.g. different components of the robot still have to be established.” See Tenorth at par. [0151]. If data is undefined, the connections to different components cannot be established. Thus, in this case, Tenorth discloses that the state of the node should be set to “invalid” (“definition of the data flow graph comprises how skills in the behavior tree operate if one or more of the values in the data are undefined”). It would have been obvious and one skilled in the art would have been motivated to incorporate the “invalid” state into the main embodiments of Gemignani in order to show when a “node has not been initialized yet.” See Tenorth at par. [0154]. Because Gemignani incorporates the disclosure of Tenorth, there would have been a reasonable chance of success. See MPEP § 2143.I.G.).
Claims 17-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gemignani in view of U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2024/0061401 to Baptiste Gradoussoff (“Gradoussoff”).
Regarding claim 17:
A system comprising: one or more computers; and one or more storage devices storing instructions that are operable, when executed by the one or more computers, to cause the one or more computers to perform operations (Gemignani does not disclose the structure to implement its behavior tree. However, in a same field of endeavor, using a behavior tree to control robot equipment (and thus analogous art), Gradoussoff discloses using a computer processor 8 with memory unit 17 to implement control software 6, which can implement a behavior tree. See Gradoussoff at pars. [0043], [0054] and [0066] and Figs. 1 and 2. Because Gemignani does not disclose the structure of its control system, it would have been obvious and one skilled in the art would have been motivated to seek and use a computer system as disclosed in Gradoussoff to implement the behavior tree. Because both Gemignani and Gradoussoff relate to control of robotic components, there would have been a reasonable chance of success. See MPEP § 2143.I.G.), comprising:
receiving a definition of a robotic behavior tree, wherein the robotic behavior tree comprises nodes, wherein leaf nodes of the robotic behavior tree are skills; receiving a definition of a data flow graph that describes data connections between skills in the robotic behavior tree, wherein the data connections comprise data with one or more values; and executing a robotic process using the definition of the robotic behavior tree and the data flow graph, thereby causing the skills to communicate according to the definition of the data flow graph (See analysis in claim 1 for these elements).
Regarding claim 18, which depends on claim 17:
wherein the definition of the data flow graph describes data connections between skills and services (See analysis in claim 2).
Regarding claim 19, which depends on claim 17:
wherein the definition of the data flow graph describes data connections between services (See analysis in claim 3).
Regarding claim 20:
A computer storage medium encoded with a computer program, the program comprising instructions that are operable, when executed by data processing apparatus, to cause the data processing apparatus to perform operations (Gemignani does not disclose the structure to implement its behavior tree. However, in a same field of endeavor, using a behavior tree to control robot equipment (and thus analogous art), Gradoussoff discloses using a computer processor 8 with memory unit 17 to implement control software 6, which can implement a behavior tree. See Gradoussoff at pars. [0043], [0054] and [0066] and Figs. 1 and 2. Because Gemignani does not disclose the structure of its control system, it would have been obvious and one skilled in the art would have been motivated to seek and use a computer system as disclosed in Gradoussoff to implement the behavior tree. Because both Gemignani and Gradoussoff relate to control of robotic components, there would have been a reasonable chance of success. See MPEP § 2143.I.G.), comprising:
receiving a definition of a robotic behavior tree, wherein the robotic behavior tree comprises nodes, wherein leaf nodes of the robotic behavior tree are skills; receiving a definition of a data flow graph that describes data connections between skills in the robotic behavior tree, wherein the data connections comprise data with one or more values; and executing a robotic process using the definition of the robotic behavior tree and the data flow graph, thereby causing the skills to communicate according to the definition of the data flow graph (See analysis in claim 1).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
European Patent Application No. EP 4095628 discloses control of a robotic component using a behavior tree.
U.S. Patent No. 6,031,549 discloses use of behavior tree to control characters.
Shoulson, A., Marshak, N., Kapadia, M., & Badler, N. I. (2013, March). Adapt: the agent development and prototyping testbed. In Proceedings of the ACM SIGGRAPH symposium on interactive 3D graphics and games (pp. 9-18), discloses an animation system that uses behavior trees and data flow graphs.
Safronov, E., Vilzmann, M., Tsetserukou, D., & Kondak, K. (2019, November). Asynchronous behavior trees with memory aimed at aerial vehicles with redundancy in flight controller. In 2019 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) (pp. 3113-3118). IEEE, discloses use of behavior trees in flight control.
Ghzouli, R., Berger, T., Johnsen, E. B., Dragule, S., & Wąsowski, A. (2020, November). Behavior trees in action: a study of robotics applications. In Proceedings of the 13th ACM SIGPLAN international conference on software language engineering (pp. 196-209), discloses use of behavior trees in robotics applications.
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/B.K./Examiner, Art Unit 2116
/KENNETH M LO/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2116
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