DETAILED ACTION
This Non-Final Office Action is in response to the amendment filed 4/9/2026.
Claims 1, 7, and 8 have been amended.
Claims 6 and 9 have been canceled.
Claims 1-5, 7, and 8 are pending.
Response to Arguments
35 U.S.C. 112(f) limitations
The claim limitations interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) in the Office Action mailed 1/9/2026 remain maintained herein.
Rejections under 35 U.S.C. 101
Due to the amendment filed 4/9/2026, the rejections of claims 8 and 9 under 35 U.S.C. 101 has been withdrawn.
Rejections under 35 U.S.C. 103
Applicant’s arguments with respect to the claims 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. Specifically, upon further search and consideration of the amendment filed 4/9/2026, a new reference has been applied to the claims. Because claim 1 was amended to incorporate the limitations of original claim 6, the present Office Action has been made Non-Final. See new claim rejections below.
Examiner’s Note
To enhance clarity, claim language is underlined throughout this Office Action.
Citations to the prior art are provided in parentheses following each claim limitation, along with any necessary supplemental explanations.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1-5, 7, and 8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Abd El Salam Mohamed et al. (US 2022/0403622 A1), hereinafter Abd El Salam Mohamed.
Claim 1
Abd El Salam Mohamed discloses the claimed automatic operation system for performing automatic operation of a work machine (see ¶0025, with respect to Figure 2, regarding system 200 is for automatically controlling an operation of a work vehicle during performance of an earthmoving operation), comprising:
an attachment (i.e. lift assembly 19) attached to the machine body (i.e. chassis 14) capably of making a motion for performing work (see ¶0019, regarding that by selectively pivoting the components of lift assembly 19, bucket 20 may perform various earthmoving operations within a worksite, e.g., the bucket may be actuatable over any portion of horizontal stroke length HR1 and over any portion of a vertical height range VR1, as depicted in Figure 1) and including an attachment body (i.e. boom 22) and a tip attachment (i.e. implement 20) (see ¶0018-0019, with respect to Figure 1, regarding that lift assembly 19 includes implement 20 and boom 22, defined as including boom arm 24 and dipper arm 26), the tip attachment including a control target part (i.e. third pivot axis 32) and attached to a tip of the attachment body (see ¶0019, with respect to Figure 1, regarding implement 20 is pivotably coupled to second end 26B of dipper arm 26 about a third pivot axis 32) capably of making a release motion for performing work of releasing a work object (see ¶0034, regarding that when bucket 20 is at the ending point, bucket 20 is pivoted about pivot axis 32 from load-carrying position to load-dumping position, and the load of worksite materials is released onto dump pile DP), the attachment body being operable to change a position of the control target part (see ¶0036, regarding that computing system 202 controls operation of lift assembly 19 via operation of actuators 34A, 34B, 34C to move bucket along the travel path to the ending point, where actuators are defined in ¶0020, with respect to Figure 1; ¶0040, regarding that bucket is moved by lifting assembly 19 along a first travel path P1, as depicted in Figure 3A, with respect to third pivot axis 32; ¶0041, regarding that bucket is moved by lifting assembly 19 along a second travel path P2, as depicted in Figure 3B, with respect to third pivot axis 32); and
a controller (i.e. computing system 202) including:
a target path setting part that sets a target path (e.g., first travel path P1 or second travel path P2), which is a target of a path along which the control target part is to be moved between a work position where the tip attachment makes the release motion and a path end position away from the work position (see ¶0034, regarding that computing system 202 creates a travel path for bucket 20 from starting position of bucket 20 at the dig site DG to an ending point at the determined dumping height at dump pile DP, where a dump-initiation position is the same as the ending point of the travel path, as described in ¶0035; ¶0038, regarding that computing system 202 automatically controls the lift assembly 19 to return bucket 20 to the dig-start position at the dig site DG for subsequent dig operation; ¶0040-0041, regarding that a first travel path P1 is determined for a first dumping operation and a second travel path P2 is determined for a second dumping operation, where both travel paths are defined with respect to pivot axis 32, as depicted in Figures 3A and 3B);
an automatic operation part that automatically controls the motion of the attachment so as to make the attachment perform a series of motions over a plurality of cycles (see ¶0036, regarding computing system 202 controls operation of the lift assembly 19 to move bucket 20 along the travel path to the ending point, such that the computing system 202 may further automatically control operation of lift assembly 19 to pivot bucket 20 from the load-carrying position to the load-dumping position and then return bucket 20 to a dig-start position at the dig site DB for subsequent dig operation, as described in ¶0038), the series of motions including a motion of moving the control target part along the target path (see ¶0041, regarding that a first travel path P1 is determined for a first dumping operation, where the travel path is defined with respect to pivot axis 32, as depicted in Figure 3A);
a work upper limit position setting part that sets a work upper limit position that is an upper limit of the work position (see ¶0037, regarding the selection of a tip height limit from tables stored in memory 206 of computing system 202); and
a work position shifting part that shifts the work position in an up-down direction in accordance with an advance of the series of motions over the plurality of cycles (see ¶0033, regarding that once the current vertical height of the dump pile DP is determined, computing system 202 determines a dumping height DH, defined with respect to pivot axis 32 as a sum of the current vertical height of the dump pile and a vertical offset, such that for each dumping operation, the bucket 20 does not contact the dump pile DP; ¶0040-0041, regarding that after the first dumping operation in Figure 3A in which the ending point at the dump pile DP of the first travel path P1 has a dumping height DH1, a second travel path P2 is generated for bucket 20 that has an updated dumping height DH2 that is taller than the first dumping height DH1, as depicted in Figure 3B), wherein the work position shifting part shifts the work position to the work upper limit position or within a range on a lower side of the work upper limit position (see ¶0037, regarding that bucket 20 is moved to the ending point when the height of the end point is less than the tip height limit), and sets the work position in the series of motions in a first cycle after setting of the work upper limit position by the work upper limit position setting part among the plurality of cycles to a position on a lower side of the work upper limit position (see ¶0037, regarding that bucket 20 is moved to the ending point after determining that the height at the end point is less than the tip height limit, and bucket 20 is returned to a dig-start position at dig site DG for subsequent dig operations, as described in ¶0038),
the controller further includes a work end judgment part that judges whether or not a preset work end condition for ending work by the series of motions over the plurality of cycles is satisfied (i.e. height of the ending point is greater than the tip height limit), and the automatic operation part is configured to end the work when the work end condition is judged to be satisfied, the work end condition including a condition that the work position has reached the work upper limit position (see ¶0037, regarding that computing system 202 compares the height of the ending point to a tip height limit, and if the height of the ending point is greater than the tip height limit, a new dump pile location is selected and/or an error is indicated to the operator via user interface 60). By selecting a new dump pile location or generating an error, as opposed to performing a subsequent dump operation, the “work” performed at dump pile DP in Abd El Salam Mohamed is ended.
The embodiment illustrated in Figures 3A-C of Abd El Salam Mohamed may incorporate the features of ¶0037, wherein a height of the ending point is compared to a tip height limit to further mitigate a tipping risk.
Claim 2
Abd El Salam Mohamed further discloses that the work position shifting part is configured to shift the working position to an upper side in accordance with an advance of the cycle of the series of motions (see ¶0040-0041, regarding that after the first dumping operation in Figure 3A in which the ending point at the dump pile DP of the first travel path P1 has a dumping height DH1, a second travel path P2 is generated for bucket 20 that has an updated dumping height DH2 that is taller than the first dumping height DH1, as depicted in Figure 3B).
Claim 3
Abd El Salam Mohamed further discloses that the work upper limit position setting part is configured to set the work upper limit position based on a position at which the tip attachment is located (see ¶0033, regarding that once the current vertical height of the dump pile DP is determined, computing system 202 determines a dumping height DH, defined with respect to pivot axis 32 as a sum of the current vertical height of the dump pile and a vertical offset, such that for each dumping operation, the bucket 20 does not contact the dump pile DP; ¶0037, regarding that the tip height limit is selected using tables stored in memory 206 of computing system 202, such that the height of the ending point is compared to the tip height limit, where the height of the end point, e.g., dumping height DH1, corresponds to the position of pivot axis 32 of implement 20, as depicted in Figure 3A).
Claim 4
Abd El Salam Mohamed further discloses a peripheral-object position detector (i.e. vision-based sensors 36) acquires peripheral-object position information that is information on a position of an object present around the work position (see ¶0029, regarding that computing system 202 receives data directly indicative of a height of the dump pile DP at a dump site within the worksite from the vision-based sensors 36), wherein the work position shifting part is configured to shift the work position based on the peripheral-object information acquired by the peripheral-object position detector (see ¶0033, regarding that once the current vertical height of the dump pile DP is determined, computing system 202 determines a dumping height DH, defined with respect to pivot axis 32 as a sum of the current vertical height of the dump pile and a vertical offset, such that for each dumping operation, the bucket 20 does not contact the dump pile DP). The limitation of “peripheral-object position information” is interpreted in light of the Applicant’s specification filed 7/31/2024, which recites “[e]xamples of the peripheral-object position information include information on the position of the ground surface, information on the position of the work object WOa (FIG. 4) having been released” in paragraph [0026], where the work object WOa is depicted in Figure 4 as the dump pile, similar to the dump pile DP of Abd El Salam Mohamed.
Claim 5
Abd El Salam Mohamed further discloses that the work position shifting part is configured to shift the work position by a preset constant shift amount in accordance with the advance of the series of motions over the plurality of cycles (see ¶0033, regarding that the dumping height DH is a sum of the current vertical height of the dump pile and a vertical offset, where the vertical offset is selected such that bucket 20 is located at the same distance vertically above the dump pile DP for each dumping operation).
Claim 7
Abd El Salam Mohamed discloses the claimed work machine (see Figure 1, depicting work vehicle 10) comprising the elements discussed in the rejection of claim 1.
Claim 8
Abd El Salam Mohamed discloses the claimed non-transitory computer readable storage medium comprising an automatic operation program for performing automatic operation of a work machine (see ¶0027, regarding computing system 202 may include computer readable medium configured to store instructions to perform the disclosed methods, where system 200 automatically controls an operation of a work vehicle during performance of an earthmoving operation, as described in ¶0025), as discussed in the rejection of claim 1.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Specifically, Berry et al. (US 2018/0142441 A1) teaches that controller 196 varies the vertical distance 556 and horizontal distance 558 as a function of the number of unloading cycles delivered to the material receptacle 106 to achieve a target distribution of material within the material receptacle 106 to compensate for increasing height of material 108 within material receptacle 106 with successive cycles (see ¶0083), Wu et al. (US 2022/0195690 A1) teaches creating a target trajectory for autonomously loading a dump truck (see ¶0127), where dumping end point Pe1 associated with target trajectory TL1 for a first cycle is provided at a height lower than subsequent cycles, e.g., dumping end point Pe2 associated with target trajectory TL2 (see ¶0148, ¶0149, Figure 8B), and Imaizumi (US 2018/0119384 A1) teaches automatic unloading control of a wheel loader (see ¶0072), where successive loading cycles are performed in which the distal end of the boom of the wheel loader is moved from a start position Zs to an end position Ze (see ¶0083-0088, with respect to Figure 8).
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Sara J Lewandroski whose telephone number is (571)270-7766. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday, 9 am-5 pm ET.
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/SARA J LEWANDROSKI/Examiner, Art Unit 3661
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