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 § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1–10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101. The claims are directed to the abstract idea of collecting information, analyzing information, and displaying the results of that analysis in the context of a palletizing safety control system. The recited projection device, vision recognition, 3D vision camera, and transport robot are generic components used in their ordinary capacity and do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application or provide significantly more. The claims also do not satisfy the machine-or-transformation consideration because the recited machines are not meaningfully tied to the claimed method and no transformation of a particular article is recited.
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) 1-7 and 10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by JP 7088432.
JP 7088432 discloses (claim 1) a safety control area setting method implemented to prevent occurrence of safety accidents by displaying a safety area in a display 60 around a logistics transport and loading system 1, the method comprising: safety area reading 51 for reading the safety area corresponding to a range for preventing a collision with a transport robot 31,33,34,36 forming the logistics transport and loading system to transport and load a transport object 37 or the transport object 37 under transportation and loading, from a safety area reading device 40; and safety area displaying for displaying the safety area read in the safety area reading, through projection of a projection device 60 (JP7088432 mentions a danger area/range which depicted on the display which inherently depicts the safety area/range where the object can be moved to avoid collision simultaneously and where the object should not be moved i.e. the danger area/range); (claim 2) the safety area reading 51 includes reading the safety area in view of transport object characteristics including a size and a shape of the transport object under transportation after the transport object is picked up by the transport robot; (claim 3) the safety area displaying includes displaying the safety area in view of transport object characteristics read in the safety area reading (figure 3); (claim 4) wherein the transport object characteristics are read, based on 3D vision recognition using a 3D vision camera 40; (claim 5) avoidance maneuver area reading for reading an avoidance maneuver area G1-G6 which is an area avoided to prevent the collision by the transport robot when it is determined that the collision with the transport robot or the transport object occurs while the transport object is transported; (claim 6) avoidance maneuver area displaying for displaying the avoidance maneuver area read in avoidance maneuver area reading, through projection of the projection device (figures 3-8); (claim 7) area recognizing for recognizing the safety area displayed in the safety area displaying, through vision recognition as broadly claimed, see figures 3-8 showing the display with danger areas G1-G6 and the peripheral areas/safety areas about the danger areas; (claim 10) avoidance maneuvering 52 for performing a collision avoidance maneuver of the transport robot, when it is determined that there is a probability of collision with the transport robot or the transport object under transportation.
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, 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.
Claim(s) 8 and 9 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over JP 7088432 in view of Sundermeyer et al. (USP 12,138,805).
Regarding claims 8 and 9, JP 7088432 includes all the claimed features but does not disclose a probability of falling down reading from a gripping portion provided on the transport robot in view of a surface texture of the transport robot. Sundermeyer discloses a robot manipulator having a suction gripper that includes model-based grasping based on the object characteristics to ensure a proper grip avoiding the object falling off. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date to include the model based grasping system of Sundermeyer to ensure the best possible grasp for each object grasped.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to GENE O CRAWFORD whose telephone number is (571)272-6911. The examiner can normally be reached M-Thurs 6a-5p; Fri 6a-2p.
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/GENE O CRAWFORD/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3651
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