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 .
Response to Arguments
The amendment filed 11/24/2025 has been entered. Claims 1, 5, 11, and 15 are amended. Claims 4 and 14 are cancelled. Claims 1-3, 5-13, and 15-20 remain pending in the application. Applicant’s amendments to the specification and claims have overcome each and every objection and 112(b) rejection set forth in the Non-Final Office Action mailed 9/18/2025.
Applicant’s arguments, see pages 2-3, with respect to the cited prior art not teaching the amended subject matter of claims 1 and 11 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 Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn.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 Chavan Dafle (US 20200055152 A1), Takahashi (US 20080114491 A1), and Chavan Dafle (2) (US 20200055680 A1).
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, 5-6, 8-13, 15-16, and 18-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chavan Dafle (US 20200055152 A1) in view of Takahashi (US 20080114491 A1) and Chavan Dafle (2) (US 20200055680 A1).
Regarding Claim 1,
Chavan Dafle teaches
A controller for manipulating an object having at least one external contact by using a gripper of a robot arm having actuators, comprising: (“As shown in FIGS. 1A-1B a robotic system 100 may include a gripper 102 with two or more fingers 104 located on opposing sides of the gripper. Each finger may include a contact 104a for contacting an object 106 held in the gripper. … While an object 106 is gripped between the fingers 104 of a gripper 102, an external frictional push may be applied to the object by a pusher 108 as indicated by arrows 108a. The frictional push may be applied by providing a relative displacement between the pusher and the gripper. …The robot arm may comprise a processing unit 114 (i.e. one or more processors and associated non-transitory computer readable medium, including instructions to execute the disclosed methods and algorithms disclosed herein) and one or more actuators 116 that are controlled by the processing unit to control a position and/or orientation of the gripper during operation.” See at least [0063-0064])
a signal interface configured to receive a task command (“The processing unit 114 may be communicatively coupled to the one or more actuators, and may direct the one or more actuators.” See at least [0081]; “suitable trajectory to the goal position and orientation is determined. … the resulting trajectory corresponding to a sequence of displacements applied using frictional pushes may be executed as described previously.” See at least [0097])
a memory configured to store computer-implemented programs including an in-gripper mechanics model, a parametric model of a manipulation task and a robust tuning framework; (“the embodiments described herein may be embodied as a computer readable storage medium … encoded with one or more programs that, when executed on one or more computers or other processors, perform methods that implement the various embodiments discussed above. … Generally, program modules include routines, programs, objects, components, data structures, etc. that perform particular tasks or implement particular abstract data types.” See at least [0170-0172]; See at least [0072-0074] describing the calculation and application of the friction cone which is interpreted as an in-gripper mechanics model.; See at least [0084] for the description of a planned sequence for a pushing trajectory from an initial pose to a goal pose, wherein the planned sequence is interpreted as a parametric model of a manipulation task.; See at least [0083] describing modifying the motion cone which is interpreted as a robust tuning framework.; Also the frameworks described in at least [0085-0086] are interpreted as robust tuning frameworks.; Examiner Interpretation: Since the stored program modules include routines, programs, objects, components, data structures, etc. that perform the embodiments described in Chavan Dafle, the claimed computer-implemented programs as interpreted are stored in the memory.)
a processor configured to perform instructions of the computer programs, in association with the memory, wherein the instructions include steps of: (“the embodiments may be implemented using hardware, software or a combination thereof. When implemented in software, the software code can be executed on any suitable processor or collection of processors, whether provided in a single computing device or distributed among multiple computing devices.” See at least [0165]; “the embodiments described herein may be embodied as a computer readable storage medium … encoded with one or more programs that, when executed on one or more computers or other processors, perform methods that implement the various embodiments discussed above.” See at least [0170])
computing a motion cone that maintains a desired contact mode based on contact parameters between the object and the gripper (“the processing unit may be further configured to generate a motion cone comprising physically possible and stable displacements.” See at least [0029]; “a motion cone may be determined using an assumed range of frictional forces. For example, an upper threshold frictional force and/or a lower threshold frictional force may be assumed, calculated, or otherwise determined.” See at least [0060]; “due to the physical constraints associated with frictional pushing, the pusher 108 is only able to move the object relative to the gripper over a limited range of directions without the pusher slipping relative to the object. This range of physically possible and stable displacements of the object relative to a gripper is depicted by the three dimensional motion cone 110 in FIGS. 1A and 1C. Thus, a relative displacement of the pusher and gripper 104 may be executed by selecting and applying one of the physically possible and stable displacements included in the motion cone 110 to the object 106 using the robotic systems described herein.” See at least [0066]; “The method 800 may comprise creating a generalized friction cone at 802, solving for a motion cone based on the generalized friction cone at 804” See at least [0083])
refining the motion cone based on an uncertainty range of each of the contact parameters; (“modifying the motion cone by varying a force exerted by the gripper on the object at 806, optionally determining a polyhedral approximation of the motion cone at 808” See at least [0083]; “a motion cone may be determined using an assumed range of frictional forces. For example, an upper threshold frictional force and/or a lower threshold frictional force may be assumed, calculated, or otherwise determined. One or both of these threshold frictional forces may be used to determine a motion cone that may be more conservative than a motion cone determined using more parameters, and may be implemented using the same methods and algorithms disclosed relative to the other embodiments using these conservative assumptions regarding frictional forces. Such conservative motion cones may provide increased robustness when implementing robotic controls in manufacturing and other appropriate environments.” See at least [0060]; “to achieve robust pushing strategies under the uncertainty in the friction at the fingers is as follows. In this approach, a subset of a motion cone may be found such that any object motion inside the subset will always be feasible with any friction at the gripper that is higher than expected.” See at least [0145-0146])
generating a manipulator position trajectory (“finding a displacement in the set of possible displacements using a motion cone generated at the selected position at 1316, In instances where the sampled displacement is outside of a set of possible displacements, a displacement in the set of possible displacements closest to the sample displacement may be selected at 1318. After selecting the displacement, a new displacement corresponding to the selected displacement may be added to the sequence at 1320. At 1322, the list or tree of positions and/or orientations may be updated to include a resulting position from the new displacement. This process may be iterated until a suitable trajectory to the goal position and orientation is determined.” See at least [0097])
and controlling the manipulator according to the generated manipulator position trajectory by transmitting a manipulator position trajectory signal of the manipulator position trajectory to the actuators of the robot arm to reorient the object in the gripper using the at least one external contact. (“this process may be done autonomously by the robot, such that the robot both determines and executes one or more frictional pushes to reposition and/or reorient the object relative to the gripper.” See at least [0059]; “The processing unit 114 may be communicatively coupled to the one or more actuators, and may direct the one or more actuators to apply a selected physically possible and stable displacement from within the set of displacements included in the motion cone to move the object 106 relative to the gripper.” See at least [0081]; “After determining a desired sequence of displacements, as illustrated by the final trajectory 906, the sequence of displacements may be executed using either one, or a plurality of, frictional pushes to displace an object from an initial position and orientation 902 to a goal position and orientation 908 relative to a gripper the object is held by.” See at least [0093])
Chavan Dafle does not explicitly teach but Takahashi teaches
a signal interface configured to receive … a contact signal from the manipulator (“a signal inputting circuit, a signal outputting circuit or the like, and controlling the operation of the robot R.” See at least [0021]; “The first measuring section 21 measures respective contacts of the finger mechanisms 11 to 13 in an object (work) w on the basis of the outputs of an unillustrated six-axis force sensor arranged in a finger tip portion of each of the finger mechanisms 11 to 13 and a contact sensor arranged in a finger pulp portion.” See at least [0030])
computing an in-hand slippery of the object based in the gripper using the in-gripper mechanics model; (“The "slip index" is defined as a decreasing function of the magnitude of an inner product of a vector perpendicular to the axis of a frictional cone of the object with respect to each finger mechanism, and an application force vector from each finger mechanism to the object.” See at least [0006]; “Further, a slip index s1 defined in formula (4) becomes minimum. … With respect to the slip index s1(k), the weighting of right side first and second terms on relative to frictional force of each of the first finger mechanism 11 and the second finger mechanism 12 and the object w may be also set to be larger than the weighting of a right side third term relative to frictional force of the third finger mechanism 13 separated from the object w and the object w, and this right side third term may be also omitted.” See at least [0036-0037] and formula (4) wherein the formula uses the in-gripper mechanics model according to the vectors on the gripping plane perpendicular to the axis of a frictional cone of each of the finger mechanisms in the object (See at least [0033]) and the application forces (See at least [0034]).)
generating a manipulator position trajectory that minimizes the object in-hand slippery (“In accordance with the robot hand 1 fulfilling the above function, when force F.sub.3 applied to the object w from the third finger mechanism 13 among the plurality of finger mechanisms 11 to 13 is changed, the operation of each of the finger mechanisms 11 to 13 is controlled such that contacts c.sub.1, c.sub.2, c.sub.3 of the respective finger mechanisms 11 to 13 in the object w, and target application forces F.sub.10(k), F.sub.20(k), F.sub.30(k) from the respective finger mechanisms 11 to 13 to the object w, in its turn, application forces F.sub.1, F.sub.2, F.sub.3 satisfy the "stable gripping condition" (see FIG. 3/S002 to S014). The "stable gripping condition" is a condition in which … (2) the slip index s1 becomes minimum (see formulas (4) and (5)). … since the condition of minimizing the slip index s1 is satisfied, the situation of slipping the finger mechanisms 11 to 13 with respect to the object w is avoided or restrained.” See at least [0045])
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the teachings of Chavan Dafle to further include the teachings of Takahashi with a reasonable expectation of success because “the situation of slipping the finger mechanisms with respect to the object is avoided or restrained by satisfying the condition of minimizing the slip index.” (See at least [0006] and [0045])
Takahashi also does not explicitly teach, but Chavan Dafle (2) teaches
computing a motion cone that maintains a desired contact mode based on contact parameters between the object and the gripper and between the object and at least one external contact with an environment; (“determining the set of physically possible and stable displacements may include calculating a robust motion cone containing feasible movements of the gripper relative to the object such that the object remains in contact with the surface.” See at least [0041])
the minimization based on maintaining contact between the object and the at least one external contact with the environment; (“While the surface may in fact be fixed in place in the environment, determining the set of displacements in the reference frame of the gripper may allow the set of displacements to be described by a set of robust motion cones comprising a range of physically possible and stable pushes that the surface may apply to the object while maintaining substantially stationary contact between the object and the surface. Accordingly, in some implementations described herein, the surface underlying the object may be referred to as a pusher. However, it should be understood that a pusher may refer to any appropriate supporting surface that an object may be placed on and where a relative displacement between the gripper and the supporting surface may be applied to provide the desired frictional push to the object while maintaining the object substantially stationary relative to the supporting surface.” See at least [0027])
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the teachings of Chavan Dafle and Takahashi to further include the teachings of Chavan Dafle (2) with a reasonable expectation of success to reduce cost and improve efficiency of the system by providing“a fixturing strategy for regrasping an object that does not use a physical fixture. For example, to regrasp an object in a gripper (i.e., to adjust a grip on the object), a robotic gripper may frictionally push the object against an external contact in the environment such that the external contact keeps the object stationary while fingers of the gripper slide along the object while it is held by the gripper. In this manner, the systems and methods described herein may provide for fixtureless fixturing of an object, in that the effect of employing a fixture is realized without requiring a physical fixture.” (See at least [0020-0021])
Regarding Claim 11,
Chavan Dafle further teaches
A non-transitory computer-readable medium for manipulating an object having at least one external contact by using a manipulator and a gripper of a robot arm having actuators, comprising instructions stored thereon, that when executed on a processor, perform steps of: (“As shown in FIGS. 1A-1B a robotic system 100 may include a gripper 102 with two or more fingers 104 located on opposing sides of the gripper. Each finger may include a contact 104a for contacting an object 106 held in the gripper. … While an object 106 is gripped between the fingers 104 of a gripper 102, an external frictional push may be applied to the object by a pusher 108 as indicated by arrows 108a. The frictional push may be applied by providing a relative displacement between the pusher and the gripper. …The robot arm may comprise a processing unit 114 (i.e. one or more processors and associated non-transitory computer readable medium, including instructions to execute the disclosed methods and algorithms disclosed herein) and one or more actuators 116 that are controlled by the processing unit to control a position and/or orientation of the gripper during operation.” See at least [0063-0064]; Also see at least [0170])
receiving, by using a signal interface, a task command (“The processing unit 114 may be communicatively coupled to the one or more actuators, and may direct the one or more actuators.” See at least [0081]; “suitable trajectory to the goal position and orientation is determined. … the resulting trajectory corresponding to a sequence of displacements applied using frictional pushes may be executed as described previously.” See at least [0097])
computing a motion cone that maintains a desired contact mode based on contact parameters between the object and the gripper (“the processing unit may be further configured to generate a motion cone comprising physically possible and stable displacements.” See at least [0029]; “a motion cone may be determined using an assumed range of frictional forces. For example, an upper threshold frictional force and/or a lower threshold frictional force may be assumed, calculated, or otherwise determined.” See at least [0060]; “due to the physical constraints associated with frictional pushing, the pusher 108 is only able to move the object relative to the gripper over a limited range of directions without the pusher slipping relative to the object. This range of physically possible and stable displacements of the object relative to a gripper is depicted by the three dimensional motion cone 110 in FIGS. 1A and 1C. Thus, a relative displacement of the pusher and gripper 104 may be executed by selecting and applying one of the physically possible and stable displacements included in the motion cone 110 to the object 106 using the robotic systems described herein.” See at least [0066]; “The method 800 may comprise creating a generalized friction cone at 802, solving for a motion cone based on the generalized friction cone at 804” See at least [0083])
refining the motion cone based on an uncertainty range of each of the contact parameters; (“modifying the motion cone by varying a force exerted by the gripper on the object at 806, optionally determining a polyhedral approximation of the motion cone at 808” See at least [0083]; “a motion cone may be determined using an assumed range of frictional forces. For example, an upper threshold frictional force and/or a lower threshold frictional force may be assumed, calculated, or otherwise determined. One or both of these threshold frictional forces may be used to determine a motion cone that may be more conservative than a motion cone determined using more parameters, and may be implemented using the same methods and algorithms disclosed relative to the other embodiments using these conservative assumptions regarding frictional forces. Such conservative motion cones may provide increased robustness when implementing robotic controls in manufacturing and other appropriate environments.” See at least [0060]; “to achieve robust pushing strategies under the uncertainty in the friction at the fingers is as follows. In this approach, a subset of a motion cone may be found such that any object motion inside the subset will always be feasible with any friction at the gripper that is higher than expected.” See at least [0145-0146])
generating a manipulator position trajectory (“finding a displacement in the set of possible displacements using a motion cone generated at the selected position at 1316, In instances where the sampled displacement is outside of a set of possible displacements, a displacement in the set of possible displacements closest to the sample displacement may be selected at 1318. After selecting the displacement, a new displacement corresponding to the selected displacement may be added to the sequence at 1320. At 1322, the list or tree of positions and/or orientations may be updated to include a resulting position from the new displacement. This process may be iterated until a suitable trajectory to the goal position and orientation is determined.” See at least [0097])
and controlling the manipulator according to the generated manipulator position trajectory by transmitting a manipulator position trajectory signal of the manipulator position trajectory to the actuators of the robot arm to reorient the object in the gripper using the at least one external contact. (“this process may be done autonomously by the robot, such that the robot both determines and executes one or more frictional pushes to reposition and/or reorient the object relative to the gripper.” See at least [0059]; “The processing unit 114 may be communicatively coupled to the one or more actuators, and may direct the one or more actuators to apply a selected physically possible and stable displacement from within the set of displacements included in the motion cone to move the object 106 relative to the gripper.” See at least [0081]; “After determining a desired sequence of displacements, as illustrated by the final trajectory 906, the sequence of displacements may be executed using either one, or a plurality of, frictional pushes to displace an object from an initial position and orientation 902 to a goal position and orientation 908 relative to a gripper the object is held by.” See at least [0093])
Chavan Dafle does not explicitly teach but Takahashi teaches
receiving, by using a signal interface, a contact signal from the manipulator (“a signal inputting circuit, a signal outputting circuit or the like, and controlling the operation of the robot R.” See at least [0021]; “The first measuring section 21 measures respective contacts of the finger mechanisms 11 to 13 in an object (work) w on the basis of the outputs of an unillustrated six-axis force sensor arranged in a finger tip portion of each of the finger mechanisms 11 to 13 and a contact sensor arranged in a finger pulp portion.” See at least [0030])
computing an in-hand slippery of the object based in the gripper using an in- gripper mechanics model; (“The "slip index" is defined as a decreasing function of the magnitude of an inner product of a vector perpendicular to the axis of a frictional cone of the object with respect to each finger mechanism, and an application force vector from each finger mechanism to the object.” See at least [0006]; “Further, a slip index s1 defined in formula (4) becomes minimum. … With respect to the slip index s1(k), the weighting of right side first and second terms on relative to frictional force of each of the first finger mechanism 11 and the second finger mechanism 12 and the object w may be also set to be larger than the weighting of a right side third term relative to frictional force of the third finger mechanism 13 separated from the object w and the object w, and this right side third term may be also omitted.” See at least [0036-0037] and formula (4) wherein the formula uses the in-gripper mechanics model according to the vectors on the gripping plane perpendicular to the axis of a frictional cone of each of the finger mechanisms in the object (See at least [0033]) and the application forces (See at least [0034]).)
generating a manipulator position trajectory that minimizes the object in-hand slippery (“In accordance with the robot hand 1 fulfilling the above function, when force F.sub.3 applied to the object w from the third finger mechanism 13 among the plurality of finger mechanisms 11 to 13 is changed, the operation of each of the finger mechanisms 11 to 13 is controlled such that contacts c.sub.1, c.sub.2, c.sub.3 of the respective finger mechanisms 11 to 13 in the object w, and target application forces F.sub.10(k), F.sub.20(k), F.sub.30(k) from the respective finger mechanisms 11 to 13 to the object w, in its turn, application forces F.sub.1, F.sub.2, F.sub.3 satisfy the "stable gripping condition" (see FIG. 3/S002 to S014). The "stable gripping condition" is a condition in which … (2) the slip index s1 becomes minimum (see formulas (4) and (5)). … since the condition of minimizing the slip index s1 is satisfied, the situation of slipping the finger mechanisms 11 to 13 with respect to the object w is avoided or restrained.” See at least [0045])
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the teachings of Chavan Dafle to further include the teachings of Takahashi with a reasonable expectation of success because “the situation of slipping the finger mechanisms with respect to the object is avoided or restrained by satisfying the condition of minimizing the slip index.” (See at least [0006] and [0045])
Takahashi also does not explicitly teach, but Chavan Dafle (2) teaches
computing a motion cone that maintains a desired contact mode based on contact parameters between the object and the gripper and between the object and at least one external contact with an environment; (“determining the set of physically possible and stable displacements may include calculating a robust motion cone containing feasible movements of the gripper relative to the object such that the object remains in contact with the surface.” See at least [0041])
the minimization based on maintaining contact between the object and the at least one external contact with the environment; (“While the surface may in fact be fixed in place in the environment, determining the set of displacements in the reference frame of the gripper may allow the set of displacements to be described by a set of robust motion cones comprising a range of physically possible and stable pushes that the surface may apply to the object while maintaining substantially stationary contact between the object and the surface. Accordingly, in some implementations described herein, the surface underlying the object may be referred to as a pusher. However, it should be understood that a pusher may refer to any appropriate supporting surface that an object may be placed on and where a relative displacement between the gripper and the supporting surface may be applied to provide the desired frictional push to the object while maintaining the object substantially stationary relative to the supporting surface.” See at least [0027])
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the teachings of Chavan Dafle and Takahashi to further include the teachings of Chavan Dafle (2) with a reasonable expectation of success to reduce cost and improve efficiency of the system by providing“a fixturing strategy for regrasping an object that does not use a physical fixture. For example, to regrasp an object in a gripper (i.e., to adjust a grip on the object), a robotic gripper may frictionally push the object against an external contact in the environment such that the external contact keeps the object stationary while fingers of the gripper slide along the object while it is held by the gripper. In this manner, the systems and methods described herein may provide for fixtureless fixturing of an object, in that the effect of employing a fixture is realized without requiring a physical fixture.” (See at least [0020-0021])
Regarding Claims 2 and 12,
Chavan Dafle further teaches
wherein the motion cone for an in-gripper movement of an object is expressed by a Minkowski sum of a wrench motion space (WMS) and an environmental motion set (EMS). (“A method for approximating a motion cone including a set of physically possible and stable displacements, whose derivation is provided further below, is illustrate in FIG. 6 using the above described concepts. Specifically FIG. 6 depicts the use of a limit surface 602 which may be calculated to model a friction interaction between an object and a gripper. The limit surface 602 can be defined as the boundary of the set of physically possible and stable friction wrenches that a gripper can offer. In determining the limit surface 602, an ellipsoidal approximation may allow for a simpler representation of the limit surface 602, thus an ellipsoidal approximation of the limit surface may be assumed in FIG. 6. The ellipsoidal approximation has been shown to be computationally efficient for simulating and planning pushing motions. When an object slides between the contacts of two or more fingers of a gripper, a set of gripper wrenches, of which 604 is labeled, between the object and the gripper may intersect the limit surface 602. The intersection may result in a wrench set 608 from which a motion cone may be derived, as will be discussed next. The wrench set 608 may contain possible and stable gripper wrenches for frictional pushes applied to the object relative to the gripper.” See at least [0076] and fig. 6; Examiner Interpretation: The limit surface 602 is equivalent to an EMS and the set of gripper wrenches 604 is equivalent to a WMS. The computation performed as illustrated in fig. 6 is equivalent to a Minkowski sum.)
Regarding Claims 3 and 13,
Chavan Dafle further teaches
where a robust motion cone for a robust in-hand manipulation is obtained by taking intersection of the motion cone computed for each of the contact parameters in the uncertainty range. (“In case of uncertainty in the friction at the gripper, to generate robust pushing strategies, the planner may be constrained to the intersection motion cones computed with lower bounds on the friction coefficients and the gasping force.” See at least [0154])
Regarding Claims 5 and 15,
Chavan Dafle further teaches
wherein the motion cone is computed based on the in-gripper mechanics model for each combination of contact parameters of the uncertainty range. (“The method 800 may comprise creating a generalized friction cone at 802, solving for a motion cone based on the generalized friction cone at 804” See at least [0083], wherein the friction cone is an in-gripper mechanics model.; “The generalized friction cone for a pusher modelled with multiple point contacts is the convex hull of the generalized friction cones for each constituent pusher contact.” See at least [0105], wherein the point contacts are contact parameters; “a motion cone may be determined using an assumed range of frictional forces. For example, an upper threshold frictional force and/or a lower threshold frictional force may be assumed, calculated, or otherwise determined.” See at least [0060])
Regarding Claims 6 and 16,
Chavan Dafle further teaches
wherein a robust motion cone is determined by an intersection of different motion cones. (“to generate robust pushing strategies, the planner may be constrained to the intersection motion cones computed with lower bounds on the friction coefficients and the gasping force.” See at least [0154])
Regarding Claims 8 and 18,
Chavan Dafle further teaches
wherein the gripper is a two finger gripper. (“As shown in FIGS. 1A-1B a robotic system 100 may include a gripper 102 with two or more fingers 104 located on opposing sides of the gripper.” See at least [0063])
Regarding Claims 9 and 19,
Chavan Dafle further teaches
wherein the manipulator position trajectory maintains the at least one external contact with the object while controlling the gripper. (“it may further be checked if moving towards a new computed position and/or orientation, such as 924, is beneficial and/or if the new position and/or orientation is one at which the gripper is capable of maintaining a grasp of the object.” See at least [0092])
Regarding Claims 10 and 20,
Chavan Dafle further teaches
wherein the processor starts performing the steps of the instructions in response to the task command. (“Referring to FIG. 13, a method 1300 for manipulating an object held a gripper may comprise setting an initial position and/or orientation, a goal position and/or orientation, parameters for the displacements to be calculated and other suitable preparations as described herein for applying motion cones for controlling movement of an object relative to a gripper at 1302.” See at least [0097]; Examiner Interpretation: At least the goal position and/or orientation is the command. Setting this command is the first step of the method and are required for the following steps and therefore the steps of the instructions are performed in response.)
Claim(s) 7 and 17 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chavan Dafle (US 20200055152 A1) in view of Takahashi (US 20080114491 A1), Chavan Dafle (2) (US 20200055680 A1), and Ogawa (US 20230080565 A1).
Regarding Claims 7 and 17,
Chavan Dafle further teaches
wherein the processer starts performing the steps in response to receiving a manipulation task command including parameters via the signal interface, wherein the parameters include a state of a task, model parameters, and a control action, (“Referring to FIG. 13, a method 1300 for manipulating an object held a gripper may comprise setting an initial position and/or orientation, a goal position and/or orientation, parameters for the displacements to be calculated and other suitable preparations as described herein for applying motion cones for controlling movement of an object relative to a gripper at 1302.” See at least [0097]; Examiner Interpretation: At least the goal position and/or orientation is the command. Setting this command is the first step of the method and are required for the following steps and therefore the steps of the instructions are performed in response.)
Chavan Dafle does not explicitly teach, but Ogawa teaches
wherein the manipulation task command is inputted by an operator using an operation terminal connected to the controller via a network to the signal interface. (“The control device 1 performs data communication with the task instruction device 2 through the communication network 3. … The control device 1 receives, from the task instruction device 2, input information “S1” for specifying an objective task via the communication network 3.” See at least [0027]; “The task instruction device 2 is a device configured to accept an input regarding the objective task by a worker who designates the objective task. … The task instruction device 2 may be a tablet terminal equipped with an input unit and a display unit, or may be a stationary personal computer.” See at least [0029])
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the teachings of modified Chavan Dafle to further include the teachings of Ogawa with a reasonable expectation of success to facilitate access for improved user control. (See at least [0159])
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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 nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) 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 mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Karston G Evans whose telephone number is (571)272-8480. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri 9:00-5:00.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Abby Lin can be reached at (571)270-3976. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/K.G.E./Examiner, Art Unit 3657 /ABBY LIN/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3657
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