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 .
Status of Claims
The Office Action is in response to the application filed 07/17/2026. Claim 1, 4-8, 10-12, and 16 are presently pending and are presented for examination.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see pages 6-9, filed 07/17/2026, with respect to the rejection(s) of claim(s) 1 under Hall et al. US 20200306981 A1 (“Hall”) in combination with Tokuoka US 20210129331 A1 (“Tokuoka”) have been fully considered and are persuasive. The amendments to the claims have overcome Tokuoka’s disclosure. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of Hall et al. US 20200306981 A1 (“Hall”) in combination with Atohira et al. US 20170235301 A1 (“Atohira”).
Applicant's arguments, see pages 9-11, filed 07/17/2026, regarding the rejection of claim 16 under Hall et al. US 20200306981 A1 (“Hall”) in combination with Tokuoka US 20210129331 A1 (“Tokuoka”) have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. The claim rejection has been changed in light of the Atohira reference in the interest of compact prosecution, but the amendments do not distinguish the claims from the disclosure of Hall. The amendments to the claims fall within the area of implicit if not inherent disclosure, due to the fact that any program divided among the robots will necessarily involve dividing the robot program such that a data amount of each divided robot program of the plurality of divided robot programs falls within a capacity of a corresponding code of the plurality of codes. Under the broadest reasonable interpretation, the robot programs divided up will fall within a capacity of a corresponding code, since the entirety of the code must fall within the capacity of the corresponding code, and the task assigned to each robot in Hall is clearly limited to portions of the program that fall within the robot’s capacity to perform. The amendments to claim 16 do not distinguish the claims from the previous rejection.
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.
Claim(s) 1, 7-12, and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hall et al. US 20200306981 A1 (“Hall”) in combination with Atohira et al. US 20170235301 A1 (“Atohira”).
Regarding Claim 1. Hall teaches a robot programming system comprising:
a first information processing device including a first processor configured to convert a robot program into a code;
a visual sensor configured to capture an image of the code displayed on an information medium (Robotic arms shown in FIG. 1 communicate with a controller at 20. The arm at 14 has a QR code attachment device and code reader at 22 for reading QR codes at 12, shown in more detail in FIG. 2. In this embodiment, the construction elements 10 are tagged with QR codes 12 by the QR code attachment device and QR code reader 22. The QR codes are read by the QR code attachment device and QR code reader 22. The controller 20 receives input from the code reader 22 and provides instructions to the robotic arms 16 and 18. The robotic arms use these instructions to manipulate the construction elements 10 into position and to weld them together as per the instructions [paragraph 24]); and
a robot control device configured to control a robot, the robot control device comprising:
a second processor configured to analyze the captured image of the code so as to restore the robot program (According to FIG. 5, after reading the machine readable code at 503, instructions are provided to the device based on the machine readable code at 504, and the construction elements are manipulated based on the instructions. As best can be understood, this means that the robot controller restores the robot program from the code in step 503, provides the instructions to the device in step 504, and manipulates the construction element in step 505, which is a duplication of the robot program in the form of performing the program. This would not be possible without storing the program somewhere with the controller, and duplicating the program for use by the manipulator arms), and
convert the robot program created by the teaching into a code including information about a command sentence, a motion sentence, and a teaching position of the robot program (This is implied; the QR codes of Hall must contain the information for motion command somehow. For example, in paragraph 31, FIG. 4 including a QR code etcher etching a QR code into an I-beam with a laser and as disclosed in FIG. 5, the system of Hall is capable of gathering the robot program from the QR code, including manipulating the construction element with the device based on the instructions at 505, which necessarily includes motion and position commands).
Hall does not explicitly teach duplicate the restored robot program, and store the duplicated robot program in a storage unit after the robot program is duplicated and restored. However, one understands that this is well known in the art to a person of ordinary skill in the art. The QR codes give instantaneous instructions on what the robot should do. If the task were to be repeated, it is known in the art that simply programming the robot to repeat the process to build an identical cube would be faster than having the robot take the time to read the QR code with each iteration of construction.
Hall does not teach:
wherein the first information processing device is a programming device including the first processor further configured to:
arrange, on a virtual space, a robot system model that three-dimensionally expresses a robot system including the robot and includes a robot model;
accept a user operation of designating, as a work target part of the workpiece model, a contour line or a surface extracted from shape feature of the workpiece extracted from the workpiece model,
generate the robot program for performing work with respect to the designated work target part, and
convert the generated robot program into the code including information about a command sentence, a motion sentence, and a teaching position of the robot program.
However, Atohira teaches:
wherein the first information processing device is a programming device including the first processor further configured to:
arrange, on a virtual space, a robot system model that three-dimensionally expresses a robot system including the robot and includes a robot model;
accept a user operation of designating, as a work target part of the workpiece model, a contour line or a surface extracted from shape feature of the workpiece extracted from the workpiece model (According to one aspect of the present invention, there is provided a robot programming device for offline teaching a motion program in which a workpiece is processed by a tool mounted on a robot, the robot programming device comprising: a three-dimensional model locating part configured to locate three-dimensional models of the robot having the tool mounted thereon and a workpiece in a virtual space; a shape feature extracting part configured to extract shape features from the three-dimensional model of the workpiece, the shape features including an outline and/or a surface of a basic shape including a circle and a polygon, or a combined shape constituted by combining a plurality of the basic shapes; a first reference position setting part configured to set shape feature reference positions of the shape features; a second reference position setting part configured to set a robot reference position of the robot; a movement order determining part configured to determine a movement order of the robot in which the robot is moved between the shape features, based on the shape feature reference positions and the robot reference position; and a motion program generating part configured to generate a motion program of the robot so that the robot moves the tool along the shape feature and so that the robot is moved between the shape features according to the movement order [paragraph 9]),
generate the robot program for performing work with respect to the designated work target part (paragraph 30), and
convert the generated robot program into the code including information about a command sentence, a motion sentence, and a teaching position of the robot program (implied in paragraph 30, as with Hall).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to modify the invention of Hall with wherein the first information processing device is a programming device including the first processor further configured to: arrange, on a virtual space, a robot system model that three-dimensionally expresses a robot system including the robot and includes a robot model; accept a user operation of designating, as a work target part of the workpiece model, a contour line or a surface extracted from shape feature of the workpiece extracted from the workpiece model, generate the robot program for performing work with respect to the designated work target part, and convert the generated robot program into the code including information about a command sentence, a motion sentence, and a teaching position of the robot program as taught by Atohira so as to allow a user to observe a model of the robot program and provide input to adjust the program as needed.
Regarding Claim 7. Hall in combination with Atohira teaches the robot programming system according to claim 1.
Hall also teaches:
wherein the information medium on which the code is displayed is a paper medium (In FIG. 2, in one embodiment, the QR code can be affixed to a construction element with a code sticker at 34 of FIG. 2 [paragraph 26]).
Regarding Claim 8. Hall in combination with Atohira teaches the robot programming system according to claim 1.
Hall also teaches:
wherein
the first processor of the first information processing device is further configured to:
divide the robot program into a plurality of robot programs (In FIG. 2, three separate robotic arms are shown at 14, 16, and 18 in communication with a controller at 20 [paragraph 24]. The controller is responsible for providing instructions to the robots based on the QR codes as described in FIG. 5), and
generate a plurality of codes respectively corresponding to the plurality of divided robot programs (If a variety of codes can be printed on different construction elements as shown in FIG. 2, with different instructions to assemble the structure shown in the same figure, and the robotic arms attach the construction element to other construction elements, as per the instructions from the different machine-readable codes of the different construction elements [paragraph 30], then the device that prints the codes must generate a plurality of codes respectively corresponding to the plurality of divided robot programs), wherein
the visual sensor is configured to capture a further image of the plurality of codes (the code reader described in FIG. 5, step 503), and
the second processor is configured to restore an entirety of the robot program from the captured further image of the plurality of codes (step 504 of FIG. 5).
Regarding Claim 10. Hall in combination with Atohira teaches the robot programming system according to claim 1.
Hall also teaches:
wherein the information medium on which the code is displayed is a medium on which the code is printed and is attached to a predetermined position on the workpiece (In FIG. 2, in one embodiment, the QR code can be affixed to a construction element with a code sticker at 34 of FIG. 2 [paragraph 26]).
Regarding Claim 11. Hall in combination with Atohira teaches the robot programming system according to claim 1.
Hall also teaches:
wherein the second processor of the robot control device is further configured to execute the duplicated robot program (The controller 20 receives input from the code reader 22 and provides instructions to the robotic arms 16 and 18. The robotic arms use these instructions to manipulate the construction elements 10 into position and to weld them together as per the instructions [paragraph 24]).
Hall does not explicitly teach:
delete the duplicated robot program stored in the storage unit after execution of the duplicated robot program with respect to the workpiece is finished.
However, this would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art if the robot is intended to assemble a different structure, either with different elements or in a different arrangement, and it is well-known in the art to delete an outdated instruction once it can no longer be used due to changes in the workpieces the robot works with.
Regarding Claim 12. Hall in combination with Atohira teaches the robot programming system according to claim 1.
Hall also teaches:
wherein
the second processor of the robot control device is further configured to execute the duplicated robot program (The controller 20 receives input from the code reader 22 and provides instructions to the robotic arms 16 and 18. The robotic arms use these instructions to manipulate the construction elements 10 into position and to weld them together as per the instructions [paragraph 24]),
the code includes information about a number of workpieces for which the robot program needs to be executed (Information about how to assemble the construction elements is therefore found on the construction elements. In a preferred embodiment, the machine-readable code becomes a new origin for the robotic assembler to work from. Once the construction elements are manipulated, such as welding them together, the instructions direct the code reader where to find the next machine-readable code on the construction elements. The next machine-readable code thereby becomes the next new origin, and new construction elements are thereby connected [paragraph 18], which reads on including information about a number of workpieces for which the robot program needs to be executed).
Hall does not explicitly teach:
the second processor is further configured to delete the robot program stored in the storage unit after the second processor repeatedly executes the robot program by the number of workpieces.
However, this would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art if the robot is intended to assemble a different structure, either with different elements or in a different arrangement, and it is well-known in the art to delete an outdated instruction once it can no longer be used due to changes in the workpieces the robot works with.
Regarding Claim 16. Hall teaches an information processing device configured to generate a robot program of a robot, the information processing device comprising:
a processor configured to:
output the code, wherein
the processor is further configured to
divide, according to a predetermined rule, the robot program into a plurality of divided robot programs based on an amount of information regarding the teaching position in the robot program (In FIG. 2, three separate robotic arms are shown at 14, 16, and 18 in communication with a controller at 20 [paragraph 24]. The controller is responsible for providing instructions to the robots based on the QR codes as described in FIG. 5, and a controller receives input from the code reader and provides instructions to the device [paragraph 33]. Note that QR codes have been placed on the workpieces in advance, making this a predetermined set of rules for dividing tasks among the robots. As shown in FIG. 4, the most preferred embodiment employs a simultaneous cutting and etching method. Alternatively, the machine-readable code can be applied to the construction element after it is cut to size, whereupon it is used to direct the joining of the construction element to another. Still alternatively, the machine-readable code can be applied before any cutting or sizing. In such embodiments, the code carries the instructions for sizing (e.g. cutting) and for subsequent processing [paragraph 32]),
convert the plurality of divided robot programs into a plurality of codes, respectively, wherein each of the plurality of codes includes information about a command sentence, a motion sentence, and a teaching position of a corresponding robot program of the plurality of robot programs (This is implied; the QR codes of Hall must contain the information for motion command somehow. For example, in paragraph 31, FIG. 4 including a QR code etcher etching a QR code into an I-beam with a laser and as disclosed in FIG. 5, the system of Hall is capable of gathering the robot program from the QR code, including manipulating the construction element with the device based on the instructions at 505, which necessarily includes motion and position commands), and
output each of the plurality of codes (FIG. 5, step 505),
wherein the predetermined rule includes dividing the robot program
Hall does not teach:
a processor configured to:
arrange, on a virtual space, a robot system model including a robot model that three- dimensionally expresses the robot,
perform teaching to the robot system model based on a user input,
convert the robot program generated by the teaching into a code including information about a command sentence a motion sentence, and a teaching position of the robot program.
However, Atohira teaches:
a processor configured to:
arrange, on a virtual space, a robot system model including a robot model that three- dimensionally expresses the robot,
perform teaching to the robot system model based on a user input (According to one aspect of the present invention, there is provided a robot programming device for offline teaching a motion program in which a workpiece is processed by a tool mounted on a robot, the robot programming device comprising: a three-dimensional model locating part configured to locate three-dimensional models of the robot having the tool mounted thereon and a workpiece in a virtual space; a shape feature extracting part configured to extract shape features from the three-dimensional model of the workpiece, the shape features including an outline and/or a surface of a basic shape including a circle and a polygon, or a combined shape constituted by combining a plurality of the basic shapes; a first reference position setting part configured to set shape feature reference positions of the shape features; a second reference position setting part configured to set a robot reference position of the robot; a movement order determining part configured to determine a movement order of the robot in which the robot is moved between the shape features, based on the shape feature reference positions and the robot reference position; and a motion program generating part configured to generate a motion program of the robot so that the robot moves the tool along the shape feature and so that the robot is moved between the shape features according to the movement order [paragraph 9]),
convert the robot program generated by the teaching into a code including information about a command sentence a motion sentence, and a teaching position of the robot program (implied in paragraph 30, as with Hall).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to modify the invention of Hall with a processor configured to: arrange, on a virtual space, a robot system model including a robot model that three- dimensionally expresses the robot, perform teaching to the robot system model based on a user input, convert the robot program generated by the teaching into a code including information about a command sentence a motion sentence, and a teaching position of the robot program as taught by Atohira so as to allow a user to observe a model of the robot program and provide input to adjust the program as needed.
Claim(s) 4-6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hall et al. US 20200306981 A1 (“Hall”) in combination with Atohira et al. US 20170235301 A1 (“Atohira”) as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Gong et al. US 20150134115 A1 (“Gong”).
Regarding Claim 4. Hall in combination with Atohira teaches the robot programming system according to claim 1.
Hall does not teach:
wherein the information medium on which the code is displayed is a display screen of a second information processing device.
However, Gong teaches:
wherein the information medium on which the code is displayed is a display screen of a second information processing device (A user can provide commands to a mobile robot using a computing device that generates a glyph containing the command and displays the glyph on a display device of the computing device. In some implementations, the computing device 200 transmits the command to a service provider 110, which in turn generates the glyph 202 and transmits the glyph to the computing device 200. The mobile robot 300 captures image data (e.g. a digital photograph) that includes the glyph 202, decodes the glyph 202 to determine the command, and issues a command to one of its resources or components. As used herein, the term glyph 202 can refer to any image that is capable of storing data, including but not limited to barcodes and matrix barcodes. A matrix barcode is a two-dimensional bar code. Matrix bar codes can include quick-response codes ("QR-codes"). The foregoing framework departs from traditional use of QR-codes, which are usually displayed on advertisements or other static mediums and meant to be captured by mobile computing devices (e.g., smartphones 200b and tablets 200a) [paragraph 24]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to modify the invention of Hall with wherein the information medium on which the code is displayed is a display screen of a second information processing device as taught by Gong so as to allow a changeable display screen to communicate the code to the robot and update a new code when a new program is required.
Regarding Claim 5. Hall in combination with Atohira and Gong teaches the robot programming system according to claim 4.
Hall does not teach:
wherein the first information processing device transfers the code to the second information processing device by an e-mail function.
However, while not explicit, Gong teaches that the bar code can be transferred by smartphone or other mobile computing device to a display device of the computing device [paragraph 24]. E-mail is a common method in the art for transferring such data, and so it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to modify the invention of Hall in combination with Gong with wherein the first information processing device transfers the code to the second information processing device by an e-mail function as this would merely be an application of a known technique to a known device to yield predictable results.
Regarding Claim 6. Hall in combination with Atohira teaches the robot programming system according to claim 1.
Hall does not teach:
wherein the information medium on which the code is displayed is a display screen of the first information processing device.
However, Gong teaches:
wherein the information medium on which the code is displayed is a display screen of the first information processing device (The computing device used to display the glyph to the robot can be the user device (smartphone or tablet) [paragraph 42]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to modify the invention of Hall with wherein the information medium on which the code is displayed is a display screen of the first information processing device as taught by Gong so as to allow a changeable display screen to communicate the code to the robot and update a new code when a new program is required.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to AARON G CAIN whose telephone number is (571)272-7009. The examiner can normally be reached Monday: 7:30am - 4:30pm EST to Friday 7:30pm - 4:30am.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Wade Miles can be reached at (571) 270-7777. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/AARON G CAIN/Examiner, Art Unit 3656
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