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 .
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 (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 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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claim(s) 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 11, 15, 16 & 17 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Katagiri (US 2019/0375602) in view of Nielsen (US 2004/0262126) and Kuroda (US 4,297,927).
Interpretative note 1. Interpretative note 1. Applicant is respectfully reminded that the material or article worked upon by the apparatus does not limit apparatus claims. See MPEP 2115. In other words, cited prior art can work with Applicant's claimed article if the art discloses the positively recited elements.
Interpretative note 2. "And/or" in claim 1, line 8 is given its plain ordinary meaning under current USPTO claiming interpretation. That is, the expression equates to the following interpretations:
1. a gripper captures a cloth item from above a conveyor,
2. a gripper captures a cloth item from below, or
3. a gripper captures a cloth item from both above and below.
Because the BRI must cover all three structural configurations, a single prior art reference needs to disclose only one of the three to anticipate or render it obvious. In other words, the prior art must disclose either '1', '2' or '3' because the presence of "or" within the claim. Where the prior art discloses gripping from above Applicant cannot argue that their invention is distinct because it is capable of gripping from below, because "or" allows the limitation to be satisfied by an "above" configuration.
Katagiri discloses a selected portion of an article comprising:
a first conveyor belt 80 configured to convey an item WN across a gap in a first direction;
a transverse moving suction-type gripper 15 arranged to capture a selected portion of a cloth item from above when a selected portion of a cloth item passes a working range RW, a gripper being movable to remove an item captured by a gripper from conveyor belt; and
a controller 20 configured to activate a gripper to capture a selected portion of a cloth item when a selected portion of a cloth item passes a working range and for moving of a gripper to remove a cloth item captured by a gripper from a conveyor belt.
Katagiri discloses that the "sensor 50 is a three-dimensional camera, e.g. device, capable of acquiring the three-dimensional shapes of articles WN and captures an imaging range R1 on the conveyer 80. The robot 10 is a vertically articulated robot with six joints, for example, and operates via control of the rotation angle of each joint by the controller 20. The hand 15, attached at a tip of the robot 10, performs gripping actions on the articles WN being conveyed on the conveyer 80. The area in which the hand 15 is operable on the conveyer 80 is a working range RW, located downstream of the imaging range RI of the sensor 50 as shown in FIG. 1. The conveyer 80 conveys the articles WN at a constant speed in the conveyance direction indicated by the arrow in FIG. 1. The conveyer 80 is equipped with an encoder (not shown) for detecting the conveyance speed of the conveyer 80. With transmission of a detected value of the encoder to the controller 20, the controller 20 calculates the conveyance speed of the conveyer 80." (Paras. 20-21; see FIG. 2 also) In other words, Katagiri teaches sensing an article moving on a conveyor and providing its position along with the speed of a conveyor from articles are picked up such that when an article is in a picking area a grip-and-transfer process is activated.
Katagiri does not disclose a first conveyor belt and a second conveyor belt, separated from each other by an elongated gap or a gripper arranged to capture a selected portion of a cloth item from above when a selected portion of a cloth item passes a working range RW gap, a gripper being movable to remove an item captured by a gripper from a second conveyor belt.
And, Nielsen discloses a first conveyor belt 4/5 and a second conveyor belt 4/6, separated from each other by an elongated gap (indicated generally as the area adjacent 14, 14' & 15, 15' in FIG. 1), a gripper 26 arranged to capture a selected portion of an item from above when a selected portion of an item passes a gap, a gripper being movable to remove an item captured by a gripper from a second conveyor belt. It is noted that Nielsen does not explicitly disclose separate conveyor belts, i.e. a first and second. However, Neilsen's conveyor belt 4 functions like a 2-conveyor belt arrangement insomuch as, when view in FIG. 2, belt 5 is separated from belt 6 by a gap which enables gripper 22 to grip an article 2 from below. Thus, Nielsen's arrangement functions identically and for the same purpose as the first and second belts in claim 1. It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the invention of Katagiri to include first and second conveyor belts, a gap and a gripper that captures a portion of an item from above when a portion passe a gap, as taught by Nielsen, which reduces sag by items lifted and gripped.
Kuroda discloses a gripper 66 arranged to capture a selected portion of an item from above when a selected portion of an item passes a gap 74 in a conveyor 22, a gripper being movable to move an item captured by a gripper. Kurada discloses that sensor 56, 180, 216 activate when an item reaches a gap (shown but unlabeled in FIG. 6), whereupon gripper 66 activates in gap to move an article. It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the invention of Katagiri to include a gripper arranged to capture a selected portion of an item from above when a selected portion of an item passes a gap, a gripper being movable to move an item captured by a gripper, as taught by Kuroda, which improves on precision of moving gripped articles relative to a conveyor.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to GREGORY W ADAMS whose telephone number is (571)272-8101. The examiner can normally be reached Mon - Fri, 8am-5pm.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Saul Rodriguez can be reached at (571)272-7097. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/GREGORY W ADAMS/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3652
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