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 statements (IDS) submitted on 10/25/2023 and 11/6/2025 were filed. The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Specification
The title of the invention is not descriptive. A new title is required that is clearly indicative of the invention to which the claims are directed.
The following title is suggested: Control Device for Shifting a Movement Path of Automatic Operation.
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.
The factual inquiries 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.
Claim(s) 1-3 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Miyake (US PGPub 2020/0319620), in view of Oonishi (US PGPub 2019/0369592), and further in view of Ishii et al. [Ishii] (US PGPub 2017/0003671).
As to claim 1
Miyake discloses a control device (numerical controller 1, see Fig. 2) comprising:
a command analysis unit (analyzer 100, see Fig. 2) that analyzes a command (feed commands from the blocks of the program 200; see paragraph 0034, lines 1-2) including a machining program (system program; see paragraph 0033, lines 1-2) for machining a workpiece (workpiece 7, see Figs. 4-6), and outputs an analysis result (movement command data; see paragraph 0033, line 7) including a program coordinate value (z-axis coordinate value; see paragraph 0035, line 5) (see paragraphs 0033-0035);
an interpolation unit (first interpolator 122/second interpolator 124, see Fig. 2) that performs interpolation processing on the analysis result analyzed by the command analysis unit, and generates a movement command (movement command) of respective axes of a machine tool (first tool; see paragraph 0037, line 4/second tool; see paragraph 0037, line 9) and/or a robot (robot; see paragraph 0026, line 14) (see paragraph 0037, lines 2-14); and
a pulse generation unit (servo controllers 130, see Fig. 2) that generates a drive pulse for driving respective axes based on the movement command (see paragraph 0028, lines 1-6; paragraph 0038, lines 7-13; and paragraph 0039, lines 7-13).
However, Miyake fails to specifically disclose the control device comprising:
a graph generation unit that generates a graph indicating a machine configuration of the machine tool and/or the robot;
a shift addition node designation unit that designates any node of the graph, in order to add, to a node of the graph, shift information including an external movement amount externally inputted;
a shift information setting unit that sets the shift information for a position offset and/or posture offset of the designated node based on the shift information; and
a kinematics conversion unit that converts a program coordinate value included in the movement command to a motor coordinate value based on the position offset and/or the posture offset set in the node.
Oonishi discloses a control device (control unit 110A, see Fig. 6) comprising:
a graph generation unit (graph generation portion 113, see Fig. 6) that generates a graph indicating a machine configuration (machine configuration; see paragraph 0121, line 2) of a machine tool (machine tool 400, see Fig. 6) and/or the robot (see paragraph 0121, lines 1-3);
a shift addition node designation unit (node addition portion 116, see Fig. 6) that designates any node of the graph, in order to add, to a node of the graph, shift information (see paragraph 0121, lines 3-5);
a shift information setting unit that sets the shift information for a position offset and/or posture offset (offset and posture matrix; see paragraph 0149, line 11) of the designated node (corresponding node) based on the shift information (see paragraph 0149, lines 1-13); and
a kinematics conversion unit (coordinate information conversion portion 211, see Fig. 6) that converts a program coordinate value included in the movement command to a motor coordinate value based on the position offset and/or the posture offset set in the node (see paragraph 0011, lines 30-39).
However; Miyake and Oonishi; individually and in combination, still fail to specifically disclose the control device wherein the shift addition node designation unit adding shift information including an external movement amount externally inputted.
Ishii discloses a control device (control device 70, see Fig. 3) comprising a shift addition node designation unit (MDI device 81, see Fig. 3) adding shift information (movement information; see paragraph 0083, line 3) including an external movement amount externally inputted (see paragraph 0083, lines 2-8).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Miyake’s invention with Oonishi’s and Ishii’s in order to graph and display the machine configuration to a user, since doing so would allow an operator to input movement information of respective axes upon changing the relative position of a tool (see Ishii paragraph 0084, lines 2-5).
As to claim 2
Oonishi and Ishii disclose the control device according to claim 1, further comprising a shift information calculation unit (conversion information calculation portion 111A, see Oonishi Fig. 6) that calculates the shift information including an external movement amount in a program coordinate system (see Oonishi paragraph 0124, lines 1-11), wherein
the shift addition node designation unit designates a workpiece coordinate system node indicating a workpiece coordinate system on the graph (see Oonishi paragraph 0121, lines 3-5), and
the shift information setting unit sets the shift information for a position offset and/or a posture offset of the workpiece coordinate system node (see Oonishi paragraph 0149, lines 1-13).
As to claim 3
Oonishi and Ishii disclose the control device according to claim 1, wherein
the shift information includes an external movement amount in a motor coordinate system (see Ishii paragraph 0083, lines 2-6),
the shift addition node designation unit designates a plurality of the motor coordinate system nodes indicating a motor coordinate system of each axis in the graph (see Oonishi paragraph 0081, lines 1-8 and paragraph 0121, lines 3-5), and
the shift information setting unit sets the shift information for position offsets and/or posture offsets of the plurality of nodes (see Oonishi paragraph 0149, lines 1-13).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 4 is objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
In regards to dependent claim 4; Miyake, Oonishi, and Ishii disclose the control device according to claim 1, however; Miyake, Oonishi, and Ishii; individually or in combination; fail to specifically disclose the control device, wherein
the shift information includes the external movement amount indicating a positional difference between the machine tool and the robot measured by a measuring device,
the shift addition node designation unit designates a world coordinate system node on the graph, and
the shift information setting unit sets the shift information for a position offset and/or a posture offset of the world coordinate system node.
Accordingly, dependent claim 4 includes allowable subject matter.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Michael J. Brown whose telephone number is (571)272-5932. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Thursday from 5:30am-4:00pm.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Thomas Lee can be reached at (571)272-3667. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Michael J Brown/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2115