DETAILED ACTION
This office action is in response to the application filed on 11/16/2024. Claims 1-20 are pending and are examined.
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 Objections
Claim 1, 9 and 15 are objected to because of the following informalities:
Claim 1 recites, the terms “a user’s personalized device” twice in the claim. Should be “ the user’s personalized device”.
Appropriate correction is required.
Regarding claims 1, 9 and 15, all claims are missing the term “and” before the last limitations of the claims.
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(d):
(d) REFERENCE IN DEPENDENT FORMS.—Subject to subsection (e), a claim in dependent form shall contain a reference to a claim previously set forth and then specify a further limitation of the subject matter claimed. A claim in dependent form shall be construed to incorporate by reference all the limitations of the claim to which it refers.
The following is a quotation of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, fourth paragraph:
Subject to the following paragraph [i.e., the fifth paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112], a claim in dependent form shall contain a reference to a claim previously set forth and then specify a further limitation of the subject matter claimed. A claim in dependent form shall be construed to incorporate by reference all the limitations of the claim to which it refers.
Claims 10-14 and 16-20 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(d) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, 4th paragraph, as being of improper dependent form for failing to further limit the subject matter of the claim upon which it depends, or for failing to include all the limitations of the claim upon which it depends.
Regarding Claims 10-14 and 16-20, they claim improper dependency from claims 8 and 14 instead of independent claims 9 and 15 respectively.
Applicant may cancel the claim(s), amend the claim(s) to place the claim(s) in proper dependent form, rewrite the claim(s) in independent form, or present a sufficient showing that the dependent claim(s) complies with the statutory requirements.
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 1-20 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 pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention.
Regarding claim 1, the terms "personalized autonomous drone system", “personalized autonomous drone” and “system”, recited in the claim are unclear which renders the claim indefinite and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention.
Applicant is not being consistent about using the terms "personalized autonomous drone system", “personalized autonomous drone” and “system” in the claim language and the examiner is unable to determine whether the terms "personalized autonomous drone system", “personalized autonomous drone” “system” represent the same system or represent different systems.
Examiner interprets these terms, "personalized autonomous drone system", “personalized autonomous drone” and “system” as one system which is the "personalized autonomous drone system".
Same reasoning applies to dependent claims 2-3, 5 and 7-8 have the same issues because they recite the terms "personalized autonomous drone system", “drone system” and “system”.
Regarding claim 9, the terms "personalized autonomous drone delivery system", “drone system”, “drone” and “system”, recited in the claim are unclear which renders the claim indefinite and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention.
Applicant is not being consistent about using the terms "personalized autonomous drone delivery system", “drone system”, “drone” and “system” in the claim language and the examiner is unable to determine whether the terms "personalized autonomous drone delivery system", “drone system”, “drone” and “system” represent the same system or represent different systems.
Examiner interprets these terms, "personalized autonomous drone delivery system", “drone system”, “drone” and “system” as one system which is the "personalized autonomous drone delivery system".
Claims 1, 9 and 15 recite the terms “the collected biometric data” and “the biometric data”. There is insufficient antecedent basis for these terms in the claims.
Claim 10 recites the term “the biometric data”. There is insufficient antecedent basis for these terms in the claim.
Claims 11 and 20 recite the terms “the biometric authentication system” There is insufficient antecedent basis for these terms in the claims.
Regarding dependent claims 2-8, 10-14 and 16-20, the dependent claims are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) based on their dependency from the rejected claims 1, 9 and 15 respectively.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-20 would be allowable, should applicant overcome the claims’ objections and both claims’ rejections under 112(b) and 112(d), set forth in this office action.
The following is an examiner’s statement of reasons for identifying allowable subject matter.
The closest prior arts made of records are, Obaidi (U.S Pub No. 2017/0,090,484 A1, referred to as Obaidi), Burris et al. (U.S Pub No. 2020/0,364,655 A1, referred to as Burris) and Miller et al. (U.S. Pub. No. 2022/0,172,161 A1, referred to as Miller).
Obaidi discloses a Drone-based package delivery infrastructure which includes, e.g. a registration system, a mobile application for requesting the delivery drones, multi-factor authentication subsystems (e.g., biometric readers and cameras on the drones), a scheduling coordinator, and a management portal.
Burris discloses a pre-staged or in-person provided order which is received from a customer location. Order details are sent to a fulfillment terminal and items associated with the order are prepared or collected. The items are loaded into an autonomous device. The autonomous device plans a route from its current location to the customer location and the autonomous device navigates from its current location to the customer location using the route.
Miller discloses technologies for intelligent transfer of products which include an autonomous transfer vehicle to receive a retail product, navigate to a predetermined location, and unload the retail product. The retail product may include grocery products or fresh food. The predetermined location may be associated with a delivery vehicle. The predetermined location may be a hyperlocal aggregation facility. The autonomous transfer vehicle may be a shopping cart with a vision system and an electric motor system. The autonomous transfer vehicle may be a drone. Products from multiple autonomous transfer vehicles may be aggregated at the hyperlocal aggregation facility for delivery by a single delivery vehicle. An efficient delivery route may be determined for multiple aggregated products.
However, regarding claim 1, the prior art Obaidi, Burris and Miller when taken in the context of the claim as a whole do not disclose nor suggest, “configuring the personalized autonomous drone for a registered user, where the system allows the user to place orders for products and household services from multiple vendors, with chores such as product pickup, delivery customized for the user’s needs.”, “uploading purchase orders or service requests from a user’s personalized device (such as a smartphone, tablet, or smart home assistant), wherein the orders or requests include product details, service tasks, geospatial data, and specific instructions related to the household chores or deliveries to be performed by the personalized autonomous drone” and “enabling the personalized autonomous drone to autonomously perform tasks such as picking up products from various vendor locations based on the uploaded orders or performing specific chores and delivering products to the user’s specified location.”.
Regarding claim 9, the prior art Obaidi, Burris and Miller when taken in the context of the claim as a whole do not disclose nor suggest, “configure a personalized autonomous drone delivery system for a registered user, wherein the system allows the user to place orders for products from multiple vendors and upload purchase orders for product pickup.” and “enable the drone to autonomously pick up products from the multiple vendor locations as specified in the uploaded purchase orders, and deliver them to the user’s designated address.”.
Regarding claim 15, the prior art Obaidi, Burris and Miller when taken in the context of the claim as a whole do not disclose nor suggest, “configuring a personalized autonomous drone delivery system for a registered user, wherein the system allows the user to place orders for products from multiple vendors and upload purchase orders for product pickup” and “uploading purchase orders from multiple vendors, wherein the orders include product details and geospatial information, to the drone system; enabling the autonomous drone to collect products from the vendor locations as specified in the uploaded purchase orders and deliver the products to the user’s designated address.”.
Claims 2-8 depend on claim 1, claims 10-14 depend on claim 9 and claims 16-20 depend on claim 15 and are of consequence identified as allowable.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure: See PTO-892.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to HASSAN SAADOUN whose telephone number is (571)272-8408. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri 9:00-5:00.
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/HASSAN SAADOUN/Examiner, Art Unit 2435
/AMIR MEHRMANESH/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2435
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