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 § 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.
Claims 1 – 18 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 applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
The examiner notes, to simplify the issues shown below, every usage of “device” or “devices” in other than the initial usage of “devices” in the preamble of claim 1 line 1 is unclear. This also includes the usage preamble of every dependent claim as well. Also, the claims themselves are unclear, and the omission of prior art is not suggesting any dependent claim is allowable rather the claims themselves are unclear.
Claim 1 recites the limitation "one or more devices" in line 4 and is unclear. It is not clear, if the usage of one or more devices is making reference to devices from line 1 ,it is not clear how “one or more devices” can reference “devices” or if the one or more devices is intended to be different one or more devices.
Claim 1 recites the limitation "the one or more devices" in line 5-6. It is not clear if “the one or more devices” references “one or more devices” in line 4, or “devices” on line 1.
Claim 1 recites the limitation "the one or more devices" in line 8. It is not clear if “the one or more devices” references “one or more devices” in line 4, or “devices” on line 1.
Claim 2 recites the limitation "devices" in line 1. It is not clear if “devices” references “one or more devices” for claim 1 in line 4-8, or “devices” on line 1 of claim 1.
Claim 2 recites the limitation "the one or more devices" in line 4. It is not clear if “the one or more devices” references “one or more devices” for claim 1 in line 4-8, or “devices” on line 1 of claim 1, or claim 2 line 1 devices.
Claim 2 recites the limitation "the one or more devices" in line 4-5. It is not clear if “the one or more devices” references “one or more devices” for claim 1 in line 4-8, or “devices” on line 1 of claim 1, or claim 2 line 1 devices.
Claim 2 recites the limitation "the device" in line 6-7. It is not clear if “the devices” references “one or more devices” for claim 1 in line 4-8, or “devices” on line 1 of claim 1, or claim 2 line 1 devices.
Claim 3 recites the limitation "devices" in line 1. It is not clear if “the devices” references “one or more devices” for claim 1 in lines 4-8, or “devices” on line 1 of claim 1, or claim 2 line 1 devices.
Claim 3 recites the limitation "at least any of the one or more devices" in line 3-4. It is not clear if “at least any of the one or more devices” references “one or more devices” for claim 1 in lines 4-8, or “devices” on line 1 of claim 1, or claim 2 line 1 devices.
Claim 3 recites the limitation "a device" in line 4. It is not clear if “a device” references “one or more devices” for claim 1 in lines 4-8, or “devices” on line 1 of claim 1, or claim 2 line 1 devices or if “a device” is an altogether different device than any of the other devices.
Claim 3 recites the limitation "the device" in line 5-6. It is not clear if “the devices” references “one or more devices” for claim 1 in lines 4-8, or “devices” on line 1 of claim 1, or claim 2 or 3 line 1 devices.
Claim 3 recites the limitation "the device" in line 6. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
Claims 4-18 are indefinite under similar rationale as detailed above in claim 1-3 2.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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.
Claim(s) 1 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Dimitropoulos et al. (Seamless Human–Robot Collaborative Assembly Using
Artificial Intelligence and Wearable Devices) as cited in an 892.
Regarding claim 1, Dimitropoulos teaches an assistance system for arrangement work on devices of an elevator (See abstract, “This paper proposes an AI-based system comprised of three modules that can capture the operator and environment status and process status, identify the tasks that are being executed by the operator using vision-based machine learning, and provide customized operator support from the robot side for shared tasks, automatically adapting to the operator’s needs and preferences. Moreover, the proposed system is able to assess the ergonomics in human–robot shared tasks and adapt the robot pose to improve ergonomics using a heuristics-based search algorithm. An industrial case study derived from the elevator manufacturing sector using a high payload collaborative robot is presented to demonstrate that collaboration efficiency can be enhanced through
the use of the discussed system.”), comprising:
a camera system (See page 5, “For the APM detection algorithm to work, an input in the form of RGB photos should be provided. To avoid the installation of multiple stationary RGB cameras to achieve high coverage of the shopfloor, the necessary video stream is extracted from the built-in cameras of the AR headset that the operator is already using as a supporting device (Microsoft HoloLens 2 [27]”) that, in arrangement work of arranging each of one or more devices of the elevator in a corresponding target arrangement, captures an image of an area including a position of a target arrangement corresponding to each of the one or more devices (See page 8, 4 Case Study – page 9 first complete paragraph, Fig. 6 and Table 1);
and processing circuitry that provides guidance for arrangement in the corresponding target arrangement of each of the one or more devices based on the image captured by the image capturing apparatus camera system (See page 8, 4 Case Study – page 9 first complete paragraph, Fig. 6 and Table 1).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ROBERT J CRADDOCK whose telephone number is (571)270-7502. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday 10:00 AM - 6 PM EST.
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, Devona E Faulk can be reached at 571-272-7515. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/ROBERT J CRADDOCK/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2618
Prosecution Insights