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 .
DETAILED ACTION
Status of the Claims
Claims 1,6 are amended
Claim 2 is cancelled
Claims 1,3-11 are pending
Response to Applicant Remarks
Applicant’s well-articulated remarks have been considered but are unpersuasive for the reasons below.
Applicant’s amendments are addressed by the newly cited art.
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 1,3,5,6,7,8,11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gyori in view of Chaves US20110050396A1
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.”)
Gyori does not explicitly disclose
and in that a stock management computer is provided, 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 and in that the stock management computer is adapted for determining, if an article is placed in a correct storage location or in a wrong storage location.
Chaves is directed to a planogram compliance system. (Chaves, abstract). Chaves discloses reporting detecting compliance and noncompliance of detected items with expected locations. (Chaves, para 0060, “For example, with reference to the item 104A, a portion of the graph 302 is illustrated as being hatched and thus corresponding to a number or count of read events associated with the item 104A as received by the first (expected) receiver 108. Meanwhile, a portion 304 is illustrated as un-hatched and representing a stacked counting of item read events associated with the wrong or unexpected receiver (in this case, the second receiver 110). In other words, as explained above, the system 100 is configured so that the item 104A, having been placed in the first location 104, should be read by and detected by the first receiver 108 as the correct/right RFID reader. In fact, FIG. 3A illustrates that the item 104A is detected by the correct RFID receiver 108 for the majority of the times, but is also detected by the wrong/unexpected receiver 110 (specifically, as shown by the portion 304).”) It would have been obvious to one ordinary skill in the art before the filing date of the invention to combine Gyori with the stock management of Chaves with the motivation of maintaining planogram compliance. Id.
Regarding Claim 3, Gyori and Chaves disclose 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 and Chaves disclose 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.”)
Gyori does not explicitly disclose
And determining if an article is placed in a correct storage location or in a wrong storage location by means of the stock management computer.
See prior art rejection of claim 1 regarding Chaves
Regarding Claim 7, Gyori and Chaves disclose the method of claim 6.
Gyori does not explicitly disclose
further including providing information by means of the stock management computer indicating the storage location at which a particular article is located.
(Chaves, para 0046, “Finally in the example of FIG. 1, a Graphical User Interface (GUI) 136 is illustrated which may allow user to interact with the planogram compliance manager 102 and such other components of the system 100. For example, it may occur that the GUI 136 is provided at a location of an employee and may provide a visual indication, output or alert of planogram non-compliance when so notified by the result manager 132. For example, in the retail (e.g., grocery) examples above, such a GUI 136 may provide a visual map illustrating the aisles of a grocery store along with a visual indicator of a location of the detected planogram non-compliance.”) It would have been obvious to one ordinary skill in the art before the filing date of the invention to combine Gyori with the stock management of Chaves with the motivation of maintaining planogram compliance. Id.
Regarding Claim 8, Gyori and Chaves disclose the method of claim 6.
Gyori does not explicitly disclose
Further including determining a replenishment requirement of the storage racks.
See prior art rejection of claim 7 regarding Chaves
Regarding Claim 11, Gyori and Chaves disclose 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.
Claims 4 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gyori in view of Chaves in view of
Evans 11126861
Regarding Claim 4, Gyori and Chaves disclose 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
Chaves 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 Chaves disclose 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 Chaves with the velocity of Nguyen with the motivation of replenishing products. Id.
Regarding Claim 10, Gyori and Chaves disclose the method of claim 8.
further including automatically ordering the determined replenishment requirement.
See prior art rejection of claim 9
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ALLEN C CHEIN whose telephone number is (571)270-7985. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 8am -5pm.
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/ALLEN C CHEIN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3627
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