DETAILED ACTION
Remarks
This non-final office action is in response to the application filled on 08/14/2024. Claims 1-18 are pending and examined below.
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 .
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant’s claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119 (a) ‐ (d). The certified copy has been filed in parent Application No. JP 2022/040013, filed on 03/15/2022. PCT/JP2023/004324 was filled on 02/09/2023.
Information Disclosure Statement
As of date of this action, IDS filled has been annotated and considered.
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(s) 1-18 is/are 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 pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention.
Regarding claim 1 (and similarly claim 7 and 13), which recites “3D space” line 2 is not clear. It is not clear whether 3D space is referring to a virtual 3D space or not.
Dependent claim(s) 2-6, 8-12 and 14-20 is/are also rejected because they do not resolve their parent deficiencies.
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, 3, 5-7, 9, 11-13, 15, 17 and 18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 2018/0021952 (“Fujieda”), and further in view of US 2024/0208047 (“Itou”).
Regarding claim 1 (and similarly claim 7 and 13), as best understood in view of indefiniteness rejection explained above, Fujieda discloses a device for teaching a robot (see at least fig 1, where 20 is a teaching device), the device comprising:
a teaching point generation unit for generating a teaching point for the robot in a three- dimensional (3D) space (see at least fig 3, where teaching points are generated. See also fig 6 and [0055]);
a landmark recognition unit for recognizing a landmark placed in each of the 3D space and a real space (see at least [0059], where “In step S12, the teaching device 20 compares the measured 3D model generated in step S11 with an existing 3D model in the virtual space corresponding to the measured 3D model. If the existing 3D model is a simple geometric model having the same outer dimension as that of the actual component like a 3D model 301 illustrated in FIG. 9A, there is a case where the measured 3D model is substantially the same in outer dimension as the existing 3D model 301 but different in shape with the existing 3D model 301 (like 3D models 311 to 313 illustrated in FIGS. 9B to 9D, respectively). Then, as illustrated, for example, in FIGS. 10A and 10B, the existing 3D model 301 and the measured 3D model 311 are illustrated in voxels and compared in shape. A geometric difference between the existing 3D model 301 and the measured 3D model 311 is confirmed”);
a difference extraction unit that extracts a difference between a geometric model (see at least [0005], where “In a teaching device, 3D models of a robot or a peripheral structure are prepared and disposed in a virtual space to construct a virtual robot system…the 3D model of the peripheral structure is substituted by a simple geometric model having a substantially the same outer dimension. Therefore a difference may occur in model geometry of a structure between the virtual robot system and the real robot system.”; see also [0057], where “the teaching device 20 refers to the field of the geometric correction implementation flag 211e of the screen configuration element data 211 illustrated in FIG. 5 and discriminates a component at which a geometric difference with the real robot system may occur. Next, the teaching device 20 refers to the field of the arrangement 211b of the screen configuration element data 211 illustrated in FIG. 5, and acquires a position in the virtual space of the component at which the geometric difference may occur. In this manner, the component to be measured with the sensor by the real robot system is determined.”; see also [0063] and [0082]); and
a correction unit that corrects the teaching point based on the difference (see at least fig 7, S13 and S14).
Fujieda does not disclose the following limitations:
extracts a difference between a position and an orientation of a workpiece in the 3D space and a position and an orientation of the workpiece in the real space.
However, Itou discloses a system wherein extracts a difference between a position and an orientation of a workpiece in the 3D space and a position and an orientation of the workpiece in the real space (see at least [0088], where “superimposed on the real object (actual object) in the scene or the live image that is visually recognized by the operator, based on the recognized position and posture of the object. If there is a difference between the real object and the virtual object in the scene or the live image, the correction receiving unit 16 receives a user operation of correcting the position and the posture of the virtual object so that they coincide with each other.”; see also [0090-91] and [0095-96]).
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to have modified Fujieda to incorporate the teachings of Itou by including the above feature for confusion and damage during manipulation by comparing virtual and real objects.
Regarding claim 3 (and similarly claim 9 and 15), Fujieda further discloses a device comprising a user interface for displaying the 3D space (see at least fig 6, where simulated teaching points are displayed),
wherein the user interface displays in the 3D space (see at least fig 6, where objects are displayed 3D space)
the landmark, the workpiece, and the teaching point before correction placed in the 3D space (see at least fig 6, where path before correction is shown. See also fig 7), and
the landmark, the workpiece, and the teaching point after correction detected in the real space (see at least fig 27, where corrected path shown. See also [0066]).
Regarding claim 5 (and similarly claim 11 and 17), Fujieda further discloses a device wherein the robot operates according to a program including a variable for storing the teaching point (see at least [0049], where “The CPU 21 controls operations in the teaching device 20 collectively, and controls each of the construction units (22 to 27) via the system bus 28. The ROM 22 is non-volatile memory in which control programs”), and
the correction unit rewrites a value of the teaching point stored in the variable (see at least [0090] and [0074], where “In this manner, as illustrated in FIG. 27, a corrected path 416 of which teaching point b is the start point and teaching point d is the target point, and of which interference with the measured 3D model 314 has been avoided is obtained.” ).
Regarding claim 6 (and similarly claim 12 and 18), Fujieda further discloses a device wherein the robot operates according to a program including a variable for storing the teaching point (see at least fig 19), and
the correction unit generates another variable for storing a correction value of the teaching point (see at least fig 27), and
generates a code for adding or subtracting a value of the correction value stored in the other variable to and from a value of the teaching point stored in the variable (see at least fig 7 and [0074]).
Claim(s) 2, 8 and 14 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 2018/0021952 (“Fujieda”), and in view of US 2024/0208047 (“Itou”), as applied to claim 1, 7 and 13 above, and further in view of US2016/0246302 (“Liao”).
Regarding claim 2 (and similarly claim 8 and 14), Itou further discloses a device wherein the landmark includes a plurality of landmarks (see at least fig 6), and
extracting the difference between the position and the orientation of the workpiece in the 3D space and the position and the orientation of the workpiece in the real space includes (see at least [0094]), and
extracting the difference between the position and the orientation of the workpiece in the 3D space and the position and the orientation of the workpiece in the real space based on a position and an orientation of the (see at least [0094]).
Fujieda, in view of Itou, does not disclose the following limitation:
selecting a nearest neighbor landmark to the workpiece from among the plurality of landmarks.
However, Liao discloses a device wherein selecting a nearest neighbor landmark to the workpiece from among the plurality of landmarks (see at least [0005], where “landmark-object detection may be used to identify a plurality of landmark objects. A distance and a bearing may be computed for each landmark object, and a nearest landmark object may be selected.”; see also [0046]).
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to have modified Fujieda in view of Itou to incorporate the teachings of Liao by including the above feature for high accuracy and error correction by determining object position and orientation based on a kwon nearest landmarks.
Claim(s) 4, 10 and 16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 2018/0021952 (“Fujieda”), and in view of US 2024/0208047 (“Itou”), as applied to claim 3, 9 and 15 above, and further in view of US 2026/0134574 (“Lutgehetmann”).
Regarding claim 4 (and similarly claim 10 and 16), Itou further discloses a device wherein the landmark includes a plurality of landmarks (see at least fig 6, where at least two landmarks (horizontal and vertical part of 79) are shown),
the user interface is configured to display the plurality of landmarks in the 3D space (see at least fig 6), and
extracting the difference between the position and the orientation of the workpiece in the 3D space and the position and the orientation of the workpiece in the real space includes extracting a difference between the position and the orientation of the workpiece in the 3D space and the position and the orientation of the workpiece in the real space based on a position and an orientation of the selected landmark in the 3D space and a position and an orientation of the selected landmark in the real space (see at least [0094], where “In FIG. 6, the first object 81, the second object 82, and the third object 83 are present on the work table 79. Then, the display control unit 15 displays the virtual objects 81V and 82V and the corresponding attribute information 81T and 82T to overlap with the scene”; see also [0095], where “the virtual object 81V is deviated from the position of the real object…the correction receiving unit 16 receives the correction regarding these differences based on the input signal S1 supplied from the instruction device 2, and the display control unit 15 immediately displays newest virtual objects after the reflection of the correction.”).
Fujieda, in view of Itou, does not disclose the following limitation:
select a landmark used for extracting the difference in the position and the orientation of the workpiece from among the plurality of landmarks.
However, Lutgehetmann discloses a system wherein select a landmark used for extracting the difference in the position and the orientation of the workpiece from among the plurality of landmarks (see at least [0006], where “The method can include detecting a plurality of landmarks of the instance of the object in the image, wherein the detected plurality includes more landmarks than the first plurality of landmarks, and selecting the first plurality of landmarks from amongst the landmarks in the detected plurality”; see also [0007], where “again estimating the relative pose of the instance of the object in the first l image from a second plurality of landmarks of the instance of the object detected in the first image”; see also [0031]).
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to have modified Fujieda in view of Itou to incorporate the teachings of Lutgehetmann by including the above feature for high accuracy and error correction by determining object position and orientation based on a kwon landmarks.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SOHANA TANJU KHAYER whose telephone number is (408)918-7597. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday - Thursday, 7 am-5.30 pm, PT.
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 on 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 an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see https://ppair-my.uspto.gov/pair/PrivatePair. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative or access to the automated information system, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/SOHANA TANJU KHAYER/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3657
Prosecution Insights