DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
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 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)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
(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 1,3,5,6,11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102a1 as being anticipated by Gyori 10001402
Regarding Claim 1
a plurality of storage locations for manually inserting and removing articles
wherein an identification device is assigned to each storage location
Gyori is directed to a sensorized shelving system. (Gyori, abstract, fig.2)
wherein the identification device is designed and arranged in such a way as to identify the article when the article is in inserted into the storage location, when the article is removed from the storage location and/or after the article has been positioned in the storage location.
(Gyori, col.lns.26-40, “(13) This disclosure describes a modular item stowage system and associated modular elements that provide inventory locations. These inventory locations facilitate stowage of items at a materials handling facility (facility) or other setting. The facility may include, or have access to, an inventory management system. The inventory management system may be configured to maintain information about items, users, condition of the facility, and so forth. For example, the inventory management system may maintain data indicative of a number of items at a particular inventory location, what items a particular user is ordered to pick, how many items have been picked or placed at the inventory location, requests for assistance, environmental status of the facility, and so forth. Operation of the facility may be facilitated by using one or more sensors to acquire information about interactions in the facility. Interactions may comprise the user picking an item from an inventory location, placing an item at an inventory location, touching an item, bringing an object such as a hand or face close to an item, and so forth. For example, the inventory management system may use interaction data that indicates what item a user picked from a particular inventory location to adjust the count of inventory stowed at the particular inventory location.”)
Regarding Claim 3, Gyori discloses the rack of claim 1.
wherein the identification device has an RFID reading device disposed at the storage location
(Gyori, col.11,lns.4-16, “One or more radio frequency identification (RFID) readers 120(8), near field communication (NFC) systems, and so forth, may be included as sensors 120. For example, the RFID readers 120(8) may be configured to read the RF tags 206. Information acquired by the RFID reader 120(8) may be used by the inventory management system 122 to identify an object associated with the RF tag 206 such as the item 104, the user 116, the tote 118, and so forth. For example, based on information from the RFID readers 120(8) detecting the RF tag 206 at different times and RFID readers 120(8) having different locations in the facility 102, a velocity of the RF tag 206 may be determined.”)
Regarding Claim 5, Gyori discloses the rack of claim 1.
Wherein the identification device has a least one camera disposed at the storage location to record at least one image of the article, and an electronic image processing unit to process the image and identify the article.
Gyori discloses obtaining camera imagery and processing using artificial intelligence to identify the article. (Gyori, col.16, lns.32-43, “Techniques such as artificial neural networks (ANN), active appearance models (AAM), active shape models (ASM), principal component analysis (PCA), cascade classifiers, and so forth, may also be used to process the sensor data 128 or other data. For example, the ANN may be a trained using a supervised learning algorithm such that object identifiers are associated with images of particular objects within training images provided to the ANN. Once trained, the ANN may be provided with the sensor data 128 such as the image data from a camera 120(1), and may provide, as output, the object identifier.”)
Regarding Claim 6,
automatic identification, by means of an identification device of an article manually inserted into or manually removed from a storage location of the storage rack by an operator,
(Gyori, col.16, lns.32-43, “Techniques such as artificial neural networks (ANN), active appearance models (AAM), active shape models (ASM), principal component analysis (PCA), cascade classifiers, and so forth, may also be used to process the sensor data 128 or other data. For example, the ANN may be a trained using a supervised learning algorithm such that object identifiers are associated with images of particular objects within training images provided to the ANN. Once trained, the ANN may be provided with the sensor data 128 such as the image data from a camera 120(1), and may provide, as output, the object identifier.”)
wherein the article is identified when the article is inserted into the storage location, when the article is removed from the storage location and/or after the article has been positioned in the storage location
(Gyori, col.lns.26-40, “(13) This disclosure describes a modular item stowage system and associated modular elements that provide inventory locations. These inventory locations facilitate stowage of items at a materials handling facility (facility) or other setting. The facility may include, or have access to, an inventory management system. The inventory management system may be configured to maintain information about items, users, condition of the facility, and so forth. For example, the inventory management system may maintain data indicative of a number of items at a particular inventory location, what items a particular user is ordered to pick, how many items have been picked or placed at the inventory location, requests for assistance, environmental status of the facility, and so forth. Operation of the facility may be facilitated by using one or more sensors to acquire information about interactions in the facility. Interactions may comprise the user picking an item from an inventory location, placing an item at an inventory location, touching an item, bringing an object such as a hand or face close to an item, and so forth. For example, the inventory management system may use interaction data that indicates what item a user picked from a particular inventory location to adjust the count of inventory stowed at the particular inventory location.”)
transferring a data set relating to the removed or inserted article to a stock management computer, wherein the data set contains an identification of the article information indicating whether the article has been inserted or removed, and information for identifying the storage location, and
determining current storage occupation of the storage rack by means of the stock management computer.
(Gyori, col.3,lns.18-33, “By using the devices and techniques described herein, operation of the facility may be improved. The modular item stowage system may be easily reconfigured to hold items in a desired configuration. For example, an operator of the facility may easily reconfigure the AFUs, spacers, dividers, and so forth, on one or more platforms to arrange items to conform to a desired planogram that specifies how items are to be arranged in the inventory locations of the facility. Sensors on the platform, sensors on the modular elements such as the instrumented AFUs, or other sensors in the facility provide sensor data that may be used by the inventory management system to determine quantity on hand at a particular inventory location, quantity picked or placed by the user, and so forth.”)
Regarding Claim 11, Gyori discloses the method of claim 6.
Further including identifying the article by querying an RFID chip on or in the article, by reading a code on the article or on a pack of the article, and/or by recording at least one image of the article or of the pack of the article by means of at least one camera, and a subsequent electronic image processing of the image.
See prior art rejection of claim 5.
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 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.
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 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 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 of this title, 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 2,7,8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gyori in view of
Geiger 20220084005
Regarding claim 2, Gyori discloses the rack of claim 1.
Further including a stock management computer,
See prior art rejection of claim 1
Gyori does not explicitly disclose
wherein the stock management computer is designed to provide information relating to storage occupation on the basis of information from the identification device by indicating the storage location -and the quantity of a particular stored article
Geiger is directed to a shelf monitoring system with inventory reporting. (Geiger, para 0020, “[0020] The present application discloses a shelf hardware and firmware system equipped with cameras and weight sensors to replace conventional shelves used in pods, where a pod can be a refrigerator or a cabinet. The shelf may communicate with a computer placed nearby (or inside) the pod. Such shelves will provide data for artificial intelligence (“AI”) systems to detect a commercial transaction through physical interactions with product items available and displayed at these shelves. The shelves may also provide support for the AI system to automatically identify the replenishment of a pod (e.g., a cooler or a cabinet), by providing the data needed to identify which items were replenished and reporting to the vendor (e.g., managing the pod). Thus, the shelf hardware with the use of AI software effectively provides an automatic pod management system”). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the filing date of the invention to combine Gyori with the report of Geiger with the motivation of automatically replenishing inventory. Id.
Regarding Claim 7, Gyori discloses the method of claim 6.
further including providing information by means of the stock management computer indicating the storage location at which a particular article is located.
See prior art rejection of claim 2 regarding Geiger.
Regarding Claim 8, Gyori discloses the method of claim 6.
Further including determining a replenishment requirement of the storage racks.
See prior art rejection of claim 2 regarding Geiger.
Claims 4 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gyori in view of
Evans 11126861
Regarding Claim 4, Gyori discloses the rack of claim 1.
Gyori does not explicitly disclose
wherein the identification device has a reading device disposed at the storage location for reading a code on the article.
Evans is directed to a system for monitoring store shelves with cameras. (Evans, abstract). Evans discloses that it is a known alternative to identify goods on shelves by using a camera to read a code on product packaging. (Evans, col.13,lns.8-15, “In the illustrative embodiments, product identification is performed by decoding digital watermark data encoded in artwork of product packaging. But other techniques can naturally be used, including decoding other machine-readable symbologies that encode plural-bit data (e.g. visible, i.e., black and white 1D and 2D, barcodes), and image fingerprinting.”) It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the filing date of the invention to combine Gyori with the optical code of Evans with the motivation of identifying goods. Id.
Claims 9,10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gyori in view of
Geiger 20220084005 In view of Nguyen, “How do I configure Sales Velocity reordering?”, 2020, https://support.finaleinventory.com/hc/en-us/articles/360001542113-How-do-I-configure-Sales-Velocity-reordering
Regarding Claim 9, Gyori and Geiger disclose the method of claim 8.
Gyori does not explicitly disclose
wherein the number of articles removed during a predefined time period is taken into account in determining the replenishment requirement for at least one article
Nguyen is an article discussing the reordering feature of Descartes Finale Inventory software. (Nguyen, p.1). Nguyen discloses that sales velocity (e.g. number of articles sold in a day) can be used to determine replenishment. (Nguyen, p.2, “Calculation method time period (days): Number of days in the past Finale uses to calculate the daily sales average (Sales Velocity)
Consumption Velocity: Based on the calculation method time period, this is the average daily sales for the product at this location.
Processing Days: How long does it take to receive the shipment into inventory once it arrives from the supplier. For example, if it takes a week to receive a shipment in full after it's delivered, you would enter 7 for processing days.
Supplier Lead Days: This is derived from the section immediately above Reordering (the Purchasing section) and is pulled from Supplier 1 Lead Days. This is the number of days from creating a PO until the shipment is delivered to you from the supplier.
Safety Stock Days: This adds a pad to the minimum quantity on hand. If you do not want to wait until the very last minute to reorder inventory, add a value here to add additional days of inventory to the minimum quantity.
Usage Growth % per year: Enter the anticipated yearly product growth here
Days of Inventory: How many days of sales you'd like to forecast for when you're ordering. For a month's supply, for example, you would enter "30" for 30 days.
Reorder Point Calculated: This is the quantity Finale calculates based on all of the fields input. This is the minimum stock level allowed. Once you fall below this number, the product will be included in the reorder report and reorder screen as needing to be replenished.”) It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the filing date of the invention to combine Gyori and Evans with the velocity of Nguyen with the motivation of replenishing products. Id.
Regarding Claim 10, Gyori and Geiger disclose the method of claim 8.
further including automatically ordering the determined replenishment requirement.
See prior art rejection of claim 9
Conclusion
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/ALLEN C CHEIN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3627