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
This non-final office action is responsive to the U.S. patent application no. 18/930,713 filed on October 30, 2024.
Claims 1-19 are pending.
Claims 1-2, 6-9 and 11-19 are rejected.
Claims 3-5 and 10 are objected to.
Priority
The application claims foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119(a)-(d) to foreign application No. 63/594,195 filed on October 30, 2023.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements (IDS) submitted on 1/15/2025, 1/17/2025 and 3/26/2025 are compliant with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statements have been considered by the examiner.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3-5 and 10 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
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)(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 1-2, 6-9, 11-12, 14-17 and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being unpatentable over Andrae et al. (U.S. 2025/0348092)
Regarding claim 1, Andrae disclosed a plurality of automotive vehicle maintenance tools each of which includes:
communication circuitry which provides communication between at least another tool in the plurality of tools (Andrae, Fig. 7 and Abstract, “a communication module and a communication link”);
cluster forming circuitry configured to form a cluster of tools comprising at least two tools in the plurality of tools (Andrae, [0023] disclosed a “swarm formation manager”; Andrae further disclosed in Figs. 2, 5 and [0070-0083] disclosed an example of swarm formation that forms a cluster of at least two entities);
data sharing circuitry configured to share data between the at least two tools in the cluster of tools (Andrae disclosed in [0105-0106] that “operations and task execution component 210 of master 11 configures and provides tasks and entity trajectory data to the motion module 300 of master 11. Master motion module 300 further process and report motion status back to operations and task execution manger 210, which is configured to further report status to a status collection and monitoring manager 2201 of master 11 (or “master status manager” 2201).” The communication of execution and status data anticipates the data sharing in the claim); and
wherein each of the plurality of tools in the cluster of tools has at least one operational capability and the at least one operational capability is shared with other tools in the cluster of tools using the data sharing circuitry (Andrae disclosed in [0031] that “sending, by the master, a master announcing message, to at least one potential slave, reachable directly or indirectly over at least one communication link, the master announcing message comprising a mission type; receiving, by all reachable potential slaves, the master announcing message to check if at least one potential slave has a profile that matches the mission type, the profile including assets and abilities matching the announced mission type; and sending in return, to the master, at least one swarm joining message, by at least one of the slaves that has a profile matching the announced mission type, directly or indirectly over the communication link.” The underlined text shows that the slave entity has abilities that it can shared with other entities in the swarm).
Regarding claim 2, Andrae disclosed the apparatus of claim 1.
Andrae further disclosed wherein each of the plurality of maintenance tools advertises its capabilities to other tools in the cluster of tools (Andrae, [0031, 0133]).
Regarding claim 6, Andrae disclosed the apparatus of claim 1.
Andrae further disclosed wherein a user input is required to add a tool to the cluster of tools (Andrae, [0100], “An operator may assume the role of master, and as such to manually control the swarm via an interface module 900, for example a human-machine interface HMI”).
Regarding claim 7, Andrae disclosed the apparatus of claim 1.
Andrae further disclosed wherein the cluster of tools forms a lane in a testing facility (the subject matter in this claim is about the physical layout of the tools that appears to be arranged by human users therefore it is an implementation choice that is unrelated to the apparatus being claimed here).
Regarding claim 8, Andrae disclosed the apparatus of claim 7.
Andrae further disclosed a plurality of lanes each including a cluster of tools (similar to claim 7, the subject matter in this claim is about the physical layout of the tools that is arranged by human users therefore it is an implementation choice that is unrelated to the apparatus being claimed here).
Regarding claim 9, Andrae disclosed the apparatus of claim 8.
Andrae further disclosed wherein each of the cluster of tools includes a master tool (Andrae, Abstract, “a designated master”).
Regarding claim 11, Andrae disclosed the apparatus of claim 1.
Andrae further disclosed including memory configured to store a sequence of operation of tools in the cluster of tools (Andrae, [0021], “the mission planning manager of master is configured to receive or load a mission plan defined according to pre-defined catalogues” and [0071], “a mission plan is a set of steps, resources (e.g., assets), dependencies, and conditions organized in a sequence that may be scheduled and executed by various swarm entities as to complete a mission”).
Regarding claim 12, Andrae disclosed the apparatus of claim 1.
Andrae further disclosed the apparatus includes memory configured to store configuration information related to the configuration of the cluster of tools (Andrae, [0021], “the mission planning manager of master is configured to receive or load a mission plan … and … to create the mission configuration derived from mission plan” and [0071], “A mission configuration is an arrangement of swarm entities, assigned to respective roles and tasks and interconnected according to functional and operational requirements and constraints”).
Regarding claim 14, Andrae disclosed the apparatus of claim 1.
Andrae further disclosed wherein the at least one operational capability relates to an input/output capability (Andrae, [0067], “one or more program modules performing various swarm coordination and/or management functions may be instantiated within one or more swarm entities, depending on the role assumed within swarm, such as master or slave. Such swarm-related program modules may process, generate and maintain sets of key data as inputs and outputs between swarm entities”)
Regarding claim 15, Andrae disclosed the apparatus of claim 1.
Andrae further disclosed wherein the at least one operational capability relates to a storage capability (Andrae, [0019], “each automated entity has specific assets and abilities necessary to interoperate with other entities and perform a mission as swarm” inherent in said disclosure is that each entity must have the appropriate storage capability).
Regarding claim 16, Andrae disclosed the apparatus of claim 1.
Andrae further disclosed wherein a tool can be removed from the cluster of tools (Andrae, [0114], “adding or removing a swarm entity”).
Regarding claim 17, Andrae disclosed the apparatus of claim 16.
Andrae further disclosed wherein a new tool can be added to the cluster of tools and receive information related to a configuration of the cluster (Andrae, [0119], “In case the swarm is already formed, the swarm may be changed (some entities to be added, dismissed or paused). Once the swarm is formed, task schedule(s) is provided to each swarm entity.”).
Regarding claim 19, Andrae disclosed the apparatus of claim 1.
Andrae further disclosed wherein each tool in the cluster of tools includes identification information which is shared with other tools in the cluster of tools (Andrae, [0077], “all slaves with an entity profile identifier that matches the requested mission type respond to the master and provide their entity identifier”).
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 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 13 and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as obvious over Andrae et al. (U.S. 2025/0348092).
Regarding claim 13, Andrae disclosed the apparatus of claim 1.
Andrae might not have explicitly disclosed wherein the at least one operational capability relates to a testing capability.
However, Andrae disclosed a general-purpose method for forming a swarm of equipment/vehicles to perform a mission (Andrae, Abstract), where the mission can be of different types including construction and agriculture (Andrae, [0075] and table 2). As Andrae’s method is general purpose, it can also be applied to test tools with testing capabilities. In other words, Andrae’s disclosure would have made the subject matter in claim 13 obvious.
Regarding claim 18, Andrae disclosed the apparatus of claim 13.
Andrae might not have explicitly disclosed wherein the testing capability relates to testing a battery of an electric vehicle.
However, Andrae disclosed a general-purpose method for forming a swarm of equipment/vehicles to perform a mission (Andrae, Abstract), where the mission can be of different types including construction and agriculture (Andrae, [0075] and table 2), and each mission type may include different types of tasks such as plowing and digging for construction and seeding, loading, harvesting, dumping and fertilizing for agriculture. As Andrae’s method is general purpose, it can also be applied to test tools with testing capabilities specifically for vehicle batteries. In other words, Andrae’s disclosure would have made the subject matter in claim 13 obvious.
Related Prior Art
Honkote et al. (US 2021/0107152) is directed to a controller including a processor configured to obtain a message from a task performing agent of a group of task performing agents allocated to a plurality of tasks, wherein the message comprises information about one or more assessments of the task performing agent.
Ebrahimi Afrouzi et al. (US 12,070,847) is directed to a system for collaboration between a first robot and a second robot.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SHIRLEY X ZHANG whose telephone number is (571)270-5012. The examiner can normally be reached 8:30am - 5:00pm.
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/SHIRLEY X ZHANG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2447