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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 22 April 2026 has been entered.
Response to Amendment
Claims 1, 8, and 20 have been newly amended. Claims 3-4, 6, 13-14, and 17-18 have been newly canceled. Claims 21-25 have been newly added. The previous objection to claim 3 has been withdrawn as a result of amendment.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims 1, 8, and 20 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
Claim Objections
Claim 22 is objected to because of the following informalities:
Regarding claim 22, Applicant claims: “The method of claim 21….” The examiner notes, however, that claim 21 is directed towards “a non-transitory machine-readable digital storage,” rather than a method.
Appropriate correction is required.
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 19 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.
Regarding claim 19, Applicant claims: “The method of claim 6, wherein the graph-theory algorithm comprises Tarjan’s strongly connected components algorithm.” The examiner notes that this claim is indefinite for at least the following reasons:
1) Claim 6 has been canceled, and as such it is unclear which claim currently presented claim 19 is intended to depend from (see also the 35 U.S.C. § 112(d) rejection of claim 19 below); and
2) With the cancellation of claim 6, there is no longer any claimed “graph-theory algorithm,” raising antecedent basis issues with the present claim.
For the sake of examination, Claim 19 has been interpreted to depend from newly added claim 24, which is similar in scope to previously presented (now canceled) claim 6.
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.
Claims 16 and 19 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, or for failing to include all the limitations of the claim upon which it depends. Specifically, claim 16 is dependent on claim 13, which has been canceled, and claim 19 is dependent on claim 6, which has also canceled. As such, neither claim 16 nor claim 19 references a claim “previously set forth”. 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.
For the sake of examination, claim 16 is being interpreted as being dependent on claim 8.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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, 8, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Takase (WO 0223297 A1), hereafter Takase, in view of Summerville (US 5283739 A), hereafter Summerville.
Regarding claim 1, Takase discloses a method comprising:
Designating regions of an environment as resource zones, wherein autonomous mobile robots in a robot fleet are controllable to move towards one or more of the resource zones (0021, route setting means divides a space in which multiple mobile objects can travel simultaneously into multiple areas, 0073, plurality of mobile robots 202i are located within a predetermined space 201), the autonomous mobile robots comprising a first robot and a second robot (0110, first autonomous robot 202_1 and second autonomous robot 202_2, 0108, autonomous robots 115 and 113, see also Figs. 15 and 30);
Controlling the first robot to move within the physical environment in a direction of travel toward a first resource zone of the resource zones (0108-0109, while autonomous robots 115 and 113 are moving in a situation where they are likely to pass each other…, 0110-0112, assume there are two obstacles 341 and 342 placed within a space 201, forming a narrow passage 343 between them, in such a case, the first autonomous robot 202_1 plans a route through passage 343 towards goal cell 344, and the second autonomous robot 202_2 plans a route through passage 343 in the opposite direction towards goal cell 345, in this case, a potential deadlock is detected in the path planning of both autonomous robots);
Monitoring the robot fleet to determine that the first robot has restricted mobility in the direction of travel due at least to a position of the second robot that is between the first robot and the first resource zone (0110-0112, assume there are two obstacles 341 and 342 placed within a space 201, forming a narrow passage 343 between them, in such a case, the first autonomous robot 202_1 plans a route through passage 343 towards goal cell 344, and the second autonomous robot 202_2 plans a route through passage 343 in the opposite direction towards goal cell 345, in this case, a potential deadlock is detected in the path planning of both autonomous robots); and
Detecting a deadlock conflict based on the second robot being between the first robot and the first resource zone, the deadlock conflict comprising the first robot and the second robot being unable to move further (0108-0110, while autonomous robots 115 and 113 are moving in a situation where they are likely to pass each other, a moving obstacle 111, which was far away, approaches and moves away from the robot … this is a case where the situation becomes impossible for two vehicles to pass teach other. This kind of deadlock occurs when one of the autonomous robots is not able to plan the route … this can be detected by confirming that the … autonomous robot 115 (113) becomes movable when the other robot 113 (115) is deleted. 0110-0112, assume there are two obstacles 341 and 342 placed within a space 201, forming a narrow passage 343 between them, in such a case, the first autonomous robot 202_1 plans a route through passage 343 towards goal cell 344, and the second autonomous robot 202_2 plans a route through passage 343 in the opposite direction towards goal cell 345, in this case, a potential deadlock is detected in the path planning of both autonomous robots).
Takase fails to explicitly disclose, however, wherein the deadlock conflict is based on the second robot being programmed to wait for the first robot to enter the first resource zone before the second robot enters the first resource zone.
Summerville, however, in an analogous field of endeavor, does teach wherein a deadlock conflict is based on the second robot being programmed to wait for the first robot to enter the first resource zone before the second robot enters the first resource zone (Col. 5, Lines 24-45, The invention avoids deadlocks by allowing bidirectional travel in concert with the system "rules." Referring now to FIG. 4, an external control computer, for example, would compute the paths of AGVs 2 and 3 if both were commanded to go to Node D. If the external controller calculates the shortest (distance) path, it would take both AGVs through Node E. With conventional control schemes this would mean that AGV 3 must wait for AGV 2 to pass Node E prior to moving through Node E itself. The invention, however, provides the means to establish rules such that AGV 3 must visit Node E prior to AGV 2. In such a case, a conventional wire- or stripe-guided AGV system would deadlock because there is no way for AGV 3 to reach Node E until AGV 2 passes the node because conventional AGVs lack the control and dead-reckoning accuracy necessary for AGV 3 to "back up" while turning the corners necessary to reach Node E by going through Nodes J and H, and conventional AGVs deadlock in head-to-head encounters such as would occur if AGVs 1 and 3 met in the vicinity of Node C.).
Takase and Summerville are analogous because they are in a similar field of endeavor, e.g., mobile robot control systems. It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present invention, with a reasonable expectation of success, to have included the deadlock condition of Summerville in order to provide further means of determining a potential deadlock condition. The motivation to combine is to ensure that a deadlock condition can be identified and remedied as quickly and effectively as possible.
Claims 8 and 20 are similar in scope to claim 1, and are similarly rejected.
Claims 2, 5, and 21-23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Takase in view of Summerville, and further in view of Li (US 20220163969 A1, having an effective filing date of 20 November 2020), hereafter Li.
Regarding claim 2, the combination of Takase and Summerville teaches the method of claim 1, but fails to explicitly teach wherein a capacity of each resource zone is based on a maximum number of autonomous mobile robots that can occupy a region corresponding to the resource zone.
Li, however, in an analogous field of endeavor, does teach wherein a capacity of each resource zone is based on a maximum number of autonomous mobile robots that can occupy a region corresponding to the resource zone (0039, obstacle map is 201 is passed onto a map generator module 211, which receives the obstacle map 201 as an input and converts it into a discretized form, such as a graph, the graph includes multiple nodes representing a region of free space, 0041, nodes may be defined with an arbitrary amount of spaces, for example, 10 robots).
Takase, Summerville, and Li are analogous because they are in a similar field of endeavor, e.g., mobile robot control systems. It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present invention, with a reasonable expectation of success, to have included the capacity determination of Li in order to provide a means of determining if a robot can enter into an area. The motivation to combine is to ensure that the system is able to determine if a robot is able to enter a specific operational area.
Claim 21 is similar in scope to claim 2, and is similarly rejected.
Regarding claim 5, Takase discloses the method of claim 1, but fails to disclose it further comprising:
Mapping at least the first and second robots to a digital directed graph comprising graph nodes and graph edges, the graph edges being indicative of dependencies between the graph nodes, wherein the graph nodes correspond to resource zones;
Wherein controlling the first robot is based on at least one of the graph edges.
Li, however, in an analogous field of endeavor, does teach:
Mapping at least the first and second robots to a digital directed graph comprising graph nodes and graph edges, the graph edges being indicative of dependencies between the graph nodes, wherein the graph nodes correspond to resource zones (0039, map generator module 211 receives the obstacle map 201 as an input and converts it into a discretized form, such as a graph, the graph includes multiple nodes representing a region of free space, and every edge connecting the nodes represents a pathway with a certain amount of space that robots can move through, 0071, the system plans route A which is represented by a line or an edge from root 301 to node A);
Wherein controlling the first robot is based on at least one of the graph edges (0071, the system plans route A which is represented by a line or an edge from root 301 to node A, Examiner's note, the robots are controlled based on the planned routes, that is, based on the edges, since the edges of the graph represent pathways for the robot to traverse).
Takase and Li are analogous because they are in a similar field of endeavor, e.g., mobile robot control systems. It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present invention, with a reasonable expectation of success, to have included the graph of Li in order to provide a means of simplifying the environmental representation. The motivation to combine is to allow the system to operate off of a simplified representation of the operating environment.
Claim 23 is similar in scope to claim 5, and is similarly rejected.
Regarding claim 22, the combination of Takase, Summerville, and Li teaches the non-transitory machine-readable digital storage of claim 21, and Li teaches wherein the operations further comprise:
Determining that the first resource zone is at maximum capacity (0041, node resolver 212 can assign multiple robots that may fit into these nodes, however, if there are twenty robots, then the node resolver may have to set those additional robots to different nodes due to space constraints); and
Providing an indication that the first zone is at maximum capacity (0041, node resolver 212 can assign multiple robots that may fit into these nodes, however, if there are twenty robots, then the node resolver may have to set those additional robots to different nodes due to space constraints).
Takase, Summerville, and Li are analogous because they are in a similar field of endeavor, e.g., mobile robot control systems. It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present invention, with a reasonable expectation of success, to have included the capacity determination of Li in order to provide a means of determining if a robot can enter into an area. The motivation to combine is to ensure that the system is able to determine if a robot is able to enter a specific operational area.
Claims 7 and 25 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Takase in view of Summerville, and further in view of Gupta (US 20180039282 A1), hereafter Gupta.
Regarding claim 7, the combination of Takase and Summerville teaches the method of claim 1, but fails to disclose it further comprising:
Outputting a notification in response to detecting the deadlock conflict.
Gupta, however, in an analogous field of endeavor, does teach outputting a notification in response to detecting the deadlock conflict (0085, a deadlock manager can be notified when a first vehicle when a first vehicle 16 or an obstacle is blocking a second vehicle 16 in its navigation path).
Takase, Summerville, and Gupta are analogous because they are in a similar field of endeavor, e.g., mobile robot control systems. It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present invention, with a reasonable expectation of success, to have included the notification of Gupta in order to provide further means of determining deadlock. The motivation to combine is to allow the robotic control system to determine if a deadlock is present in the operating environment.
Claim 25 is similar in scope to claim 7, and is similarly rejected.
Claims 9 and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Takase in view of Summerville, and further in view of Liu (CN108279675A), hereafter Liu.
Regarding claim 9, the combination of Takase and Summerville teaches the method of claim 8, but fails to explicitly teach wherein autonomous mobile robots in the fleet are each configured to provide a state of operation to the one or more processing devices.
Liu, however, in an analogous field of endeavor, does teach wherein autonomous mobile robots in the fleet are each configured to provide a state of operation to the one or more processing devices (0050, each mobile robot receives a dispatch command and calculates its own corresponding planning path according to its own target node area information, each mobile robot sends its calculated planned path to the server, 0054, when the second node region allocated to the second mobile robot overlaps with the node region allocated to the first mobile robot, the overlapping region is marked as a conflicting node region in a conflicting state, Examiner’s note: the examiner asserts that the path planning process of Liu reads on the “state of operation” as claimed, as the path transmitted to the server would include the current “state,” i.e., position, as the start position).
Takase, Summerville, and Liu are analogous because they are in a similar field of endeavor, e.g., mobile robot control systems. It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present invention, with a reasonable expectation of success, to have included the deadlock state determination of Liu in order to provide further means of determining if a potential deadlock state exists. The motivation to combine is to ensure that the robotic system is better able to determine the presence of a deadlock state.
Regarding claim 10, the combination of Takase, Summerville, and Liu teaches the system of claim 9, and Liu further teaches wherein the one or more processing devices are configured to determine, based on at least one of the operational statuses, that at least one of the autonomous mobile robots is not in a deadlock conflict (0056, once it is detected that the first mobile robot A or the second mobile robot B has passed through the conflict node area, the server can convert the conflict node area from a conflict state to an allocable state).
Takase, Summerville, and Liu are analogous because they are in a similar field of endeavor, e.g., mobile robot control systems. It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present invention, with a reasonable expectation of success, to have included the passable state determination of Liu in order to provide a means of determining if a deadlock condition has cleared. The motivation to combine is to ensure that the robotic system is better able to recover from a potential deadlock state.
Claim 11 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Takase in view of Summerville and Liu, and further in view of Gupta.
Regarding claim 11, the combination of Takase, Summerville, and Liu teaches the system of claim 9, but fails to teach wherein the one or more processing devices are configured to determine, based on at least one state of operation of one autonomous mobile robot, that at least one of the autonomous mobile robots has restricted mobility that is not a result of being blocked by another autonomous mobile robot.
Gupta, however, in an analogous field of endeavor, does teach wherein the one or more processing devices are configured to determine, based on at least one state of operation of one autonomous mobile robot, that at least one of the autonomous mobile robots has restricted mobility that is not a result of being blocked by another autonomous mobile robot (0085, deadlock manager can be notified when a first vehicle 16 or an obstacle is blocking a second vehicle 16 in its navigation path).
Takase, Summerville, Liu, and Gupta are analogous because they are in a similar field of endeavor, e.g., mobile robot control systems. It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present invention, with a reasonable expectation of success, to have included the obstacle blocking determination of Gupta in order to provide a means of determining deadlock causes in an environment. The motivation to combine is to allow the robotic control system to determine if a deadlock is being caused by something the control system can manipulate.
Claim 12 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Takase in view of Summerville and Liu, and further in view of Takai (US 20220066454 A1, having an effective filing date of at least 03 August 2021), hereafter Takai.
Regarding claim 12, the combination of Takase, Summerville, and Liu teaches the system of claim 9, but fails to explicitly teach wherein the one or more processing devices are configured to determine, based on at least one state of operation, that at least one of the autonomous mobile robots is in a consideration state, the consideration state comprising the at least one of the autonomous mobile robots waiting in place for the duration, the one or more processing devices being configured to evaluate the consideration state based on velocities of one or more other autonomous mobile robots to determine whether the at least one of the autonomous mobile robot has restricted mobility.
Takai, however, in an analogous field of endeavor, does teach determining, based on at least one state of operation, that at least one of the autonomous mobile robots is in a consideration state, the consideration state comprising the at least one of the autonomous mobile robots waiting in place for the duration, the one or more processing devices being configured to evaluate the consideration state based on velocities of one or more other autonomous mobile robots to determine whether the at least one of the autonomous mobile robot has restricted mobility (0045, in order to prevent such a deadlock from occurring, the autonomous mobile robot control system 1 gives the autonomous mobile robots 20 an instruction to perform deadlock avoidance behavior that puts one autonomous mobile robot 20 into standby mode until the other autonomous mobile robot 20 passes on the basis of the priority assigned to each of the autonomous mobile robots 20, Examiner’s note: the determination as to whether the autonomous mobile robot exits standby mode requires the other autonomous mobile robot to travel, i.e., have a velocity greater than 0).
Takase, Summerville, Liu, and Takai are analogous because they are in a similar field of endeavor, e.g., mobile robot control systems. It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present invention, with a reasonable expectation of success, to have included the standby mode of Takai in order to provide further means of alleviating a potential deadlock condition. The motivation to combine is to ensure the robotic system is able to properly avoid deadlock conditions.
Claims 15 and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Takase in view of Summerville, and further in view of Jeon (US 20190018427 A1), hereafter Jeon.
Regarding claim 15, the combination of Takase and Summerville teaches the system of claim 8, but fails to explicitly disclose wherein the first robot and the second robot are each part of a queue defining an order in which the first robot and the second robot may access the first resource zone.
Jeon, however, in an analogous field of endeavor, does teach wherein the first robot and the second robot are each part of a queue defining an order in which the first robot and the second robot may access the first resource zone (0075, the waiting area may be an area in which an autonomous driving robot apparatus 100 waits in order to use a shared resource in the order of arrival when the shared resource is being used).
Takase, Summerville, and Jeon are analogous because they are in a similar field of endeavor, e.g., mobile robot control systems. It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the present invention, to have included the queueing of Jeon in order to provide further means of ensuring that a deadlock condition can be avoided. The motivation to combine is to ensure that the robots in the environment are able to navigate as efficiently as possible.
Regarding claim 16, the combination of Takase and Summerville teaches the system of claim 8, but fails to explicitly disclose wherein the one or more processing devices are configured to determine that the first robot has restricted mobility due to the second robot blocking the first resource zone by being within the first resource zone.
Jeon, however, in an analogous field of endeavor, does teach determining that the first robot has restricted mobility due to the second robot blocking the first resource zone by being within the first resource zone (0209, here, it is confirmed that a first autonomous driving robot apparatus 100-1 occupies the shared resource 300, which is the automatic door, and that a second autonomous driving robot apparatus 100-2 waits in a waiting area 20).
Takase, Summerville, and Jeon are analogous because they are in a similar field of endeavor, e.g., mobile robot control systems. It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the present invention, to have included the movement restriction based on zone occupancy of Jeon in order to provide further means of ensuring that a deadlock condition can be avoided. The motivation to combine is to ensure that the robots in the environment are able to navigate as efficiently as possible.
Claims 19 and 24 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Takase in view of Summerville and Li, and further in view of Liu et al. ("Resource Configuration for a Class of Petri Nets Based on Strongly Connected Characteristic Resource Subnets"), hereafter Liu et al.
Regarding claim 24, the combination of Takase, Summerville, and Li teaches the non-transitory machine-readable digital storage of claim 23, but fails to teach it further comprising:
Analyzing the digital directed graph based on a graph-theory algorithm, to identify one or more strongly connected components of the digital directed graph, wherein detecting the deadlock conflict is based on at least one of the one or more strongly connected components.
Liu et al., however, in an analogous field of endeavor, does teach analyzing the digital directed graph based on a graph-theory algorithm, to identify one or more strongly connected components of the digital directed graph, wherein detecting the deadlock conflict is based on at least one of the one or more strongly connected components (Page 26377, Paragraph 3, an optimal controller of a petri net for flexible manufacturing systems can be obtained by employing a reachability graph analysis, since it can be used to solve other problems such as deadlock control, Page 26379, Col. 2, Section IV, strongly connected characteristic resource sunnets are computed by applying Tarjan's depth first search approach).
Takase, Li, Summerville, and Liu et al. are analogous because they are in a similar field of endeavor, e.g., distributed system control. It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present invention, with a reasonable expectation of success, to have included the Tarjan’s depth first search of Liu et al. in order to provide further means of performing the graph analysis. The motivation to combine is to optimize the graph analysis.
Regarding claim 19, the combination of Takase, Summerville, Li, and Liu et al. teaches the method of claim 6, and Liu et al. further teaches wherein the graph-theory algorithm comprises Tarjan's strongly connected components algorithm (Page 26377, Paragraph 3, an optimal controller of a petri net for flexible manufacturing systems can be obtained by employing a reachability graph analysis, since it can be used to solve other problems such as deadlock control, Page 26379, Col. 2, Section IV, strongly connected characteristic resource sunnets are computed by applying Tarjan's depth first search approach).
Takase, Summerville, Li, and Liu et al. are analogous because they are in a similar field of endeavor, e.g., distributed system control. It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the present invention, with a reasonable expectation of success, to have included the Tarjan’s depth first search of Liu et al. in order to provide further means of performing the graph analysis. The motivation to combine is to optimize the graph analysis.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to BLAKE A WOOD whose telephone number is (571)272-6830. The examiner can normally be reached M-F, 8:00 AM to 4:30 PM Eastern.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Thomas Worden can be reached at (571) 272-4876. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/BLAKE A WOOD/ Examiner, Art Unit 3658
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