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 Amendment
Examiner notes the submission of a preliminary amendment at the date of filing this application 4/1/2024. Examiner has examined the amended claims and specification.
Claim Objections
Claims 13 & 14 are objected to because of the following informalities: “teach” should probably be – teaching --. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Interpretation
The claim 11 limitation “nonvisual motion tracking capability” is only described in the specification paragraph 0022 with the passage “Alternatively, the motion tracking of the input device 220 is nonvisual. For this purpose, the input device 220 may be equipped with an infrared sensor, an inertial measurement unit (emphasis added), an accelerometer, a magnetometer, or combinations of these.”
In addition, the GOOGLE AI Overview definition of “technology that captures, analyzes, and records human or object movement without relying on optical cameras, light-based markers, or direct line-of-sight visual analysis. Instead, these systems, such as Inertial Measurement Units (IMUs)”.
Regarding claim 15, the examiner has used the definition for “data carrier” provided by the applicant in paragraph 0015 of the specification.
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 7 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 7 has various confusing limitations:
The claimed term “favorable outcome” not the word “favorable” is not mentioned in the specification; “positive outcome” is mentioned in the specification so the examiner will interpret “favorable outcome” as the specification mentioned “positive outcome”.
However, recitation of a “positive outcome” in the claims would not be definite because “positive” is a relative term which would render the claim indefinite. The term “positive” is not defined by the claim, the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite degree, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention.
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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
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 1, 4-5, 8, 10-11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gupta et al (US2022/0032461) in view of Aldridge et al (US2020/0368904).
A method of generating a program for controlling an industrial robot (Abstract 1st sentence, fig. 7), comprising:
receiving a tentative control point (¶0035 “SQP with optimization variables being the control points of the B-Spline curves”) to be executed by a robot manipulator (fig. 12) of the industrial robot (“control points”, ¶0048-0049, ¶0054 & fig. 9 at 940, ¶0065 & fig. 2 at 210), wherein the tentative control point is entered using a handheld or body-worn input device with a motion tracking capability;
generating (¶0026 “generating path-constrained trajectories”) a tentative path segment (figures 11B & 12,) connecting the tentative control point with a preceding tentative control point (fig. 9 “Trajectory”, fig. 11B and 0061 “the starting point of a first toolpath may be 1130, the starting point of a second toolpath may be 1140 and the starting point of a third toolpath may be 1150”);
evaluating the tentative path segment's feasibility (¶0039 “programs that evaluate constrains”, ¶0079 1st two sentences) using a predefined computer model (¶0040 “developed models”) of the robot manipulator wherein the feasibility evaluation includes at least two of: a collision evaluation (¶0075 “collisions”), a singularity evaluation (¶0075 “singularity”), a reachability evaluation; and
providing feedback indicating an outcome of the evaluation (¶0040, fig. 7 at 710), wherein different feedback is provided for at least two outcomes chosen from: collision (¶0075 “collisions”), singularity (¶0075 “singularity”), non-reachability.
Gupta does not disclose that the tentative control point is entered using a handheld or body-worn input device with a motion tracking capability.
Aldridge discloses a method for generating a program (¶0014) for controlling an industrial robot (¶0043 “robotic device 120 may be configured as an industrial robot”) with a tentative control point that is entered using a handheld (fig. 1 at 102, ¶0047 “& ¶0114-¶0115) or body-worn input device with a motion tracking capability (“motion capture input devices 123” & 102 “The controller device 102 may be a handheld device…that may be used as a form of motion input.”). At the time the invention was made it would have been well known to one of ordinary skill in this art to increase functionality of the device of Gupta with the handheld information entering capability of Aldridge. A motivation for this combination would be to increase the flexibility for usage of the method of Gupta. This combination also follows the guidelines of KSR case law rationale C; use of a known technique to improve similar devices (methods, or products) in the same way.
Claims 2 and 3 have been cancelled in the preliminary amendment.
Claim 4 Gupta discloses (fig. 11B) the method of claim 1, wherein multiple tentative path segments are generated for one tentative control point (¶0052 last two sentences).
Claim 5 Gupta discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the feasibility evaluation includes evaluating alternative joint-space realizations of one tentative path segment (¶0030, ¶0034 2nd sentence).
Claim 8 Aldridge discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the feedback is tactile feedback provided through the input device (¶0051 “controller device 102 may also contain haptic feedback devices to provide vibration for certain events”).
Claim 10 Gupta discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the tentative control point further includes a tool orientation (¶0059 “tool orientation constraints or constraint parameters, tool velocity constraints or constraint parameters”).
Claim 11 Aldridge discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the input device has a nonvisual motion tracking capability (¶0029 “inertial measurement units (IMUs)”).
Claim 6 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gupta et al (US2022/0032461) in view of Aldridge et al (US2020/0368904) as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Bennice et al (US11845190).
Gupta does not disclose wherein the feasibility evaluation is implemented as a stateful process, which depends on a past trajectory of the robot manipulator.
Bennice discloses a robotics control system that uses a stateful (i.e. memory-full, state machine) process (col. 4 ll 1-4, fig. 4 408, col. 2 ll 23-26). At the time the invention was made it would have been well known to one of ordinary skill to improve the system of Gupta in view of Aldridge with the stateful process of Bennice. The motivation for this combination would be to utilize a stateful process to better retain information about past events or user sessions, allowing for superior context-aware interactions; the main advantage to stateful memory storage. This combination also follows the guidelines of KSR case law rationale C; use of a known technique to improve similar devices (methods, or products) in the same way.
Claim 9 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gupta et al (US2022/0032461) in view of Aldridge et al (US2020/0368904) as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Shelton, IV et al (US2020/0405403).
Gupta in view of Aldridge does not disclose an audible feedback.
Shelton discloses a robotic trajectory or movement system using an audible feedback (¶0615 “UI processor 836 may include audible and visual user feedback”). At the time the invention was made it would have been well within the skills of someone of ordinary skill in this art to include an audible feedback sys UI processor 836 may include audible and visual user feedback system with the device of Gupta as taught by Shelton. This combination also follows the guidelines of KSR case law rationale C; use of a known technique to improve similar devices (methods, or products) in the same way.
Claim 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gupta et al (US2022/0032461) in view of Aldridge et al (US2020/0368904).
A teach interface for generating a program for controlling an industrial robot (Abstract 1st sentence, fig. 7), comprising:
a processing unit (¶0091, ¶0100) with access to a computer model (¶0005, ¶0041 “The trajectory generation system...by improved modeling of constraints and/or constraint parameters and the trajectory generation system described herein can address problems where the constraints cannot be expressed as linear or quadratic functions.”) of a manipulator (fig. 12) of the industrial robot (“control points”, ¶0048-0049, ¶0054 & fig. 9 at 940, ¶0065 & fig. 2 at 210);
an input device suitable for being held or worn by an operator; and an
output device (fig. 7 at 710) configured to provide feedback to the operator,
wherein the processing unit includes processing circuitry (fig. 9) configured to: receive from the input device a tentative control point (¶0035 “SQP with optimization variables being the control points of the B-Spline curves”) to be executed by the manipulator (fig. 12) of the industrial robot (“control points”, ¶0048-0049, ¶0054 & fig. 9 at 940, ¶0065 & fig. 2 at 210);
generate (¶0026 “generating path-constrained trajectories”) a tentative path segment (figures 11B & 12,) connecting the tentative control point with a preceding control point (fig. 9 “Trajectory”, fig. 11B and 0061 “the starting point of a first toolpath may be 1130, the starting point of a second toolpath may be 1140 and the starting point of a third toolpath may be 1150”);
evaluate the tentative path segment's feasibility (¶0039 “programs that evaluate constrains”, ¶0079 1st two sentences) using the computer model (¶0040 “developed models”) wherein the feasibility evaluation includes at least two of: a collision evaluation (¶0075 “collisions”), a singularity evaluation (¶0075 “singularity”), a reachability evaluation; and
cause the output device to provide feedback indicating an outcome of the evaluation (¶0040, fig. 7 at 710), wherein different feedback is to be provided for at least two outcomes chosen from: collision (¶0075 “collisions”), singularity (¶0075 “singularity”), non-reachability.
Gupta does not disclose an input device suitable for being held or worn by an operator.
Aldridge discloses a method for generating a program (¶0014) for controlling an industrial robot (¶0043 “robotic device 120 may be configured as an industrial robot”) with a tentative control point that is entered using a handheld (fig. 1 at 102, ¶0047 “& ¶0114-¶0115) or body-worn input device with a motion tracking capability (“motion capture input devices 123” & 102 “The controller device 102 may be a handheld device…that may be used as a form of motion input.”). At the time the invention was made it would have been well known to one of ordinary skill in this art to increase functionality of the device of Gupta with the handheld information entering capability of Aldridge. A motivation for this combination would be to increase the flexibility for usage of the method of Gupta. This combination also follows the guidelines of KSR case law rationale C; use of a known technique to improve similar devices (methods, or products) in the same way.
Claims 14-15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gupta et al (US2022/0032461) in view of Aldridge et al (US2020/0368904).
A computer program comprising instructions to cause a teach interface to generate a program for controlling an industrial robot (Abstract 1st sentence, fig. 7), the teach interface having:
a processing unit (¶0091, ¶0100) with access to a computer model (¶0005, ¶0041 “The trajectory generation system...by improved modeling of constraints and/or constraint parameters and the trajectory generation system described herein can address problems where the constraints cannot be expressed as linear or quadratic functions.”) of a manipulator (fig. 12) of the industrial robot (“control points”, ¶0048-0049, ¶0054 & fig. 9 at 940, ¶0065 & fig. 2 at 210);
an output device (fig. 7 at 710) configured to provide feedback to the operator;
wherein the processing unit further comprises processing circuitry (fig. 9);
wherein the instructions (¶0045 “computer-readable instructions”, ¶0100), upon execution by the processing unit, causes the teach interface to:
receive a tentative control point (¶0035 “SQP with optimization variables being the control points of the B-Spline curves”) to be executed by a robot manipulator (fig. 12) of the industrial robot (“control points”, ¶0048-0049, ¶0054 & fig. 9 at 940, ¶0065 & fig. 2 at 210), wherein the tentative control point is entered using a handheld or body-worn input device with a motion tracking capability;
generate (¶0026 “generating path-constrained trajectories”) a tentative path segment (figures 11B & 12,) connecting the tentative control point with a preceding control point (fig. 9 “Trajectory”, fig. 11B and 0061 “the starting point of a first toolpath may be 1130, the starting point of a second toolpath may be 1140 and the starting point of a third toolpath may be 1150”);
evaluate the tentative path segment's feasibility (¶0039 “programs that evaluate constrains”, ¶0079 1st two sentences) using a predefined computer model (¶0040 “developed models”) of the robot manipulator wherein the feasibility evaluation includes at least two of: a collision (¶0075 “collisions”) evaluation, a singularity (¶0075 “singularity”) evaluation, a reachability evaluation; and
provide feedback indicating an outcome of the evaluation (¶0040, fig. 7 at 710), wherein different feedback is provided for at least two outcomes chosen from: collision (¶0075 “collisions”), singularity (¶0075 “singularity”), non- reachability.
Gupta does not disclose that the tentative control point is entered using a handheld or body-worn input device with a motion tracking capability.
Aldridge discloses a method for generating a program (¶0014) for controlling an industrial robot (¶0043 “robotic device 120 may be configured as an industrial robot”) with a tentative control point that is entered using a handheld (fig. 1 at 102, ¶0047 “& ¶0114-¶0115) or body-worn input device with a motion tracking capability (“motion capture input devices 123” & 102 “The controller device 102 may be a handheld device…that may be used as a form of motion input.”). At the time the invention was made it would have been well known to one of ordinary skill in this art to increase functionality of the device of Gupta with the handheld information entering capability of Aldridge. A motivation for this combination would be to increase the flexibility for usage of the method of Gupta. This combination also follows the guidelines of KSR case law rationale C; use of a known technique to improve similar devices (methods, or products) in the same way.
Claim 15 Gupta discloses the computer program of claim 14, further comprising a data carrier (¶0092 & ¶0095).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 7 would be allowable if rewritten to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), 2nd paragraph, set forth in this Office action and to include all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Michael C Zarroli whose telephone number is (571)272-2101. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 9-5 ET IFP.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Ramon Mercado can be reached at 5712705744. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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MICHAEL C. ZARROLI
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 3658B
/MICHAEL C ZARROLI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3658 /M.C.Z/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3658