DETAILED ACTION
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 .
Response to Amendment
Applicant’s “Response to Amendment and Reconsideration” filed on 11/03/2025 has been considered.
Applicant’s response by virtue of amendment to claim(s) 1-12 has overcome the Examiner’s rejection under 35 USC § 112 paragraph (necessitated by amendment).
Applicant’s response by virtue of amendment to claim(s) 1-12 has overcome the Examiner’s rejection under 35 USC § 101.
Claim(s) 1, 1-3, 5-7, 9 are amended.
Claim(s) 1-12 are pending in this application and an action on the merits follows.
Claim Objections
Claim 1 objected to because of the following informalities:
On item f, is the unique identifier signature encoded or not. The claim language first says it is and then says it is optimally encoded.
On items d and j the one or more antennas should read the one or more electronic identifier antennas and the specific antenna of the said one or more antennas should be read the specific electronic identifier antenna of the said one or more electronic identifier antennas.
On item j the signal should the responding electronic read
On item I, ii, iii responding electronic signals should read the responding electronic signals;
Please use the same terminology in the claim language, and fix any dependent claims as need.
Appropriate correction is required.
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 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.
Claim(s) 1, 3, 12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Davidson (US 20140247116 A1) in view of Kowalski et al. (US 20220277043 A1, hereinafter Kowalski), in view of Lee et al. (US 20100023535 A1, hereinafter Lee), and further in view of Official Notice as evidence by Davidson (US 20140247116 A1)).
Regarding claim 1, Davidson discloses:
A method of reconciling an existing warehouse inventory with a real-time inventory of items that are each tagged with an electronic item identifier and said items being stored in identifiable locations, the location comprising the elements of bays and shelves, comprising the steps of: (Figures 1 and 4, [0022][0023][0027][0053]-[0060] the mobile robot 105 with the inventory manager 115 integrated into the mobile robot 115 generate and record RFID item tags identifiers, expected locations of items; current and past day inventory, see Figures 1-2);
a. providing a movable structure; ([0020] mobile robot 105);
b. providing one or more electronic antennas located at one or more known positions on the movable structure; (Figure 2 [0046] RFID reader 270 with multiple antennas at different heights);
c. providing one or more stored items; (Figure 6 – shelves with items; [0043]);
d. providing one or more electronic readers wherein each of said one or more electronic readers is in electrical communication with at least one of said electronic antennas, wherein each of said electronic antennas generates an activating electronic signal which is received by one or more of the electronic item identifiers which then sends a responding electronic signal to the one or more antennas; (Figure 2 [0046] RFID reader 270 with multiple antennas at different heights; [0068][0069][0072] collects inventory data transmitted from RIFD tags - Item ID, RFID ID);
e. providing a means to record the horizontal distance that the movable structure has traversed while the movable structure is moved past the stored items; ([0040] “The angle and/or distance of the reflected laser light can be used to identify the location of the mobile robot 105. For example, the mobile robot 105 can have a reflector map including the locations of the markers stored in memory and can determine its position based on errors between expected and received measurements.”; [0053][0022]-[0027][0099][00100] the mobile robot 105 with the inventory manager 115 integrated into the mobile robot 115 that has memory to maintain data)
f. said responding electronic signal has an identifying signature within the responding electronic signal and optionally within the responding electronic signal other information as desired; ([0069][0072] [0023] collects inventory data Item Id or RFID ID);
g. providing a computer in electrical communication with said one or more electronic readers, said computer comprising an input device, a processor, a data storage means, and an amount of random-access memory; and a means to communicate electronically with other computers and data storage devices; ([0022][0023][0027][0053]-[0060] the mobile robot 105 with the inventory manager 115 integrated into the mobile robot 115 generate and record RFID item tags identifiers, expected locations of items; current and past day inventory, see Figures 1-2);
h. causing said movable structure to move past one or more of the items; ([0065]-[0070] the mobile robot 105 moves to collect inventory data on inventory items within its detection range, see figure 4 and 6);
i. providing inventory software that operates on said computer, said inventory software receives from the one or more electronic readers one or more of the identifying signatures and then electronically stores all of the identifying signatures that are received from the one or more electronic readers; (Figure 1, [0094] “the inventory manager may be incorporated into the robot”; [0023] “The inventory manager 115 can store that inventory-change data in its data storage 130 and can use such data during inventorying operations” contains RFID tags identifiers; [0065]-[0070] collects inventory data, RFID tag identifier figure 4 and 6);
j. said inventory software further stores along with each identifying signature the identifiable location of each item currently being scanned, the electronic reader that received the specific identifying signature, the specific antenna of the said one or more antennas that received the responding electronic signal from the specific item identifier, the horizontal distance that the movable structure has traversed when the specific identifying signature has been received and the signal was detected that is associated with each identifying signature received by the inventory software; and ([0022][0023][0027][0053]-[0060] the mobile robot 105 with the inventory manager 115 integrated into the mobile robot 115 generate and record RFID item tags identifiers, expected locations of items; current and past day inventory, see Figures 1-2);
k. said software generates a most probable location list for all or a subset of all the data stored by the scan by performing the following; ([0053]-[0054] identify items are not in the expected location by comparing the location information collected by the robot and previous expected location information of the first operation at the store this can help the store to find misplace and lost items, and moved items; further see para. 50-52)
([0068][0069][0072] collects inventory data transmitted from RIFD tags - Item ID, RFID ID; therefore, a list is formed)
Davidson does not disclose: unique identifying signature as unique; visual display i. generating a list of all the responding electronic signals for one specific unique identifying signature; ii. count the total number of responding electronic signals for a specific location; iii the location that had the highest computed bay metric derived from responding electronic signals is deemed to be the most probable location; and iv. if there are two or more locations which have the same computed bay metric, then each of them is deemed the most probable location, does not disclose date and time, does not disclose the visual display.
Kowalski discloses: Figure 1 and [0019] discloses visual display; [0028][0030] obtain location data and unique identifier and item type of each item 104 with tag 116 using sensors 112; see figure 1 and [0016];[0031]-[034] select an item 104 and determine whether the item 104 is sufficiently close to another item 104 of the same type. Items 104 that satisfy a proximity criterion (i.e. items 104 that are sufficiently close to one another); The proximity criterion is selected to indicate whether the selected item 104 and the other item(s) 104 of the same type are close enough [metric] to be represented as a single cluster of the same type of item; [0035]-[0039] Figure 5- generate or update an item cluster definition…cluster definitions are generated only for sets of at least two items whose respective locations satisfy the proximity criterion and includes the total count of items for the location see Figures 3-5 [group of same type of item (sku) with most probable location for an item of the same type]; Figure 5 and [0043][0046] describes same item type on two different cluster group with different location [each of them is deemed the most probable location];
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention, to modify Davidson to include the above limitations as taught by Kowalski, in order to guidance to a worker in a facility for retrieving one or more items.\, see Kowalski para. 13.
Davidson discloses RFID readers and RFID antennas; but does not disclose one or more electronic readers and one or more electronic antennas as identifiable and with identifier, date and time;
Lee discloses: [0022]-[0025] RFID ID, antenna ID, read time; the data received are stored;
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention, to modify Davidson to include the above limitations as taught by Lee, in order to distinguish between different pieces of data, see Lee para. 29.
Davidson is silence about the responding electrical signal; Examiner takes Official Notice that it is old and well-known in the art that RFID readers use encoded signal to interrogate tags data and to receive an encoded data back as evidence by Davidson on background para. 4.
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention, to modify Davidson to have the responding electrical signal encoded as taught by Official Notice, in order to ensure data accuracy of the data captured and prevent misreading.
Regarding claim 3, Davidson discloses:
wherein a Misplaced subset of all of the data stored by the scan is generated by identifying responding electronic signals that have location information that is different from that location information stored in the existing warehouse inventory. [0052] distance from the mobile robot 105 to the tag, and [0053][0054] “is used to determine the location of the tag relative to the robot 105, which can include distance and height… the robotic inventory system 100 may have received expected location information for the items in the store, and can use that information to identify items that are not in the expected location.. This can help the store organize items or find lost items. For example, an inventory clerk can receive a misplaced item report from the inventory system 100 and the inventory clerk can replace the misplaced items in their correct location.”; [0022]-[0027] the data is stored in the inventory manager 115 integrated into the robot;
Regarding claim 12, Davidson discloses:
wherein the means to record the horizontal distance the movable structure has traversed is selected from group consisting of an optical trigger, a magnetic trigger, a bar code, a retroreflective item or reflective item. ([0040] “The angle and/or distance of the reflected laser light can be used to identify the location of the mobile robot 105. For example, the mobile robot 105 can have a reflector map including the locations of the markers stored in memory and can determine its position based on errors between expected and received measurements.”)
Claim(s) 2 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Davidson, Kowalski, Lee, and Official Notice combination as applied to claim(s) 1, and further in view of Official Notice.
Regarding claim 2, The combination disclose:
wherein a counted subset of all of the data stored by the scan is generated by selecting all responding electronic signals in the scan in which the stored location for that item is within a user-defined distance from the location data in the predetermined inventory for an item having that same unique identifying signature. Kowalski discloses: [0034] The proximity criterion, in this example, is a threshold applied to a distance between the item 104 from block 210 and other items 104. For example, turning to FIG. 4, a selected item 400 (of the type 104-3) is highlighted, and a radius 404 indicates a threshold distance applied at block 215. [0028][0030]
The combination does not disclose “user-defined”. Examiner takes Official Notice that it is old and well-known to have parameters on software that compared distance to be defined by users.
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention, to modify Davidson to user-defined distance as taught by Official Notice, in order to allow the user to have flexibility in case items are bigger or smaller than others items.
Claim(s) 4 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Davidson, Kowalski, Lee, and Official Notice combination as applied to claim(s) 3, and further in view of Bauer et al. (US 20030216969 A1, hereinafter Bauer).
Regarding claim 4, the combination, Davidson discloses:
wherein said difference between the location of an item as identified in the scan and the location of the item as stored in the existing warehouse inventory. [0052]-[0054] [0022]-[0027]
The combination does not disclose: is expressed as the identified bay numbers and/or aisle numbers, is a user- definable parameter.
Bauer discloses: [0197] The Set Shelf Arrangement page 426 may allow a user to set a location for certain types of items, a category of items, items provided by certain manufacturers, a specific SKU number, and a particular range of locations within environment 110-1 (e.g., an aisle, a gondola, and/or a shelf). Page 426 may also allow a user to set the baseline inventory for each item type;
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention, to modify the combination to include the above limitations as taught by Bauer, in order to allow a user to set the baseline inventory for each item type, see Bauer para. 197.
Claim(s) 5-6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Davidson, Kowalski, Lee, and Official Notice combination as applied to claim(s) 1, and further in view of Iwase et al. (US 20230094353 A1, hereinafter Iwase).
Regarding claims 5 and 6, the combination does disclose: Claim 5 “wherein a Potential Gains subset of all of the data stored by the scan is generated by identifying responding electronic signals which do not appear in the existing warehouse inventory”, Claim 6 “wherein a Potential losses subset of all of the data captured by the scan is generated by identifying all items in the predetermined inventory that do not appear in the scanned data.”
Iware discloses: [0033]-[0071] [0043] “In a case where association between an RFID tag and a product is lost, and a difference thus occurs between an actual inventory quantity of products in the store and the number of RFID tags, once the occurrence of the difference is identified from a content of processing performed by the external terminal, the control unit 11 adjusts a count value of the number of the RFID tags according to a circumstance causing the difference” [0073] The server 10 adjusts a count value of the number of RFID tags according to a circumstance causing a difference between an actual inventory quantity of products and the number of RFID tags as described above, such as return processing or sales processing for a product of which association with an RFID tag is lost, new RFID tag issuing processing, or RFID tag discarding processing.
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention, to modify the combination to include the above limitations as taught by Iware, in order to manage an accurate inventory quantity of products in real time, see Iware para. 11.
Claim(s) 7-8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Davidson, Kowalski, Lee, and Official Notice combination as applied to claim(s) 1, and further in view of Deyle et al. (US 20210046655 A1, hereinafter Deyle).
Regarding claim 7, the combination does not disclose: wherein said movable structure further includes a vertical support upon which are mounted one or more of said identifiable electronic readers and one or more of said antennas.
Deyle discloses: [0281]. The RFID reader antennas of the robot can be distributed along a height of the robot, enabling the robot detect RFID tags at a plurality of heights.…the location of the DoA antennas can be changed dynamically. In embodiments where the robot can adjust a height of the reader antennas or DoA antennas, the reader or DoA antennas can be located on a moveable or extendible arm, or can be located on a moving surface within or on the outside of the robot.
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention, to modify Davidson to include the above limitations as taught by Deyle, in order to enable the reader antennas to dynamically scan a plurality of heights for potential RFID tags, see Deyle para. 281.
Regarding claim 8, the combination, specifically Deyle discloses the RFID reader antennas are distributed along the heights of the robot when is extended or not extended; however, does not specifically disclose the heights as wherein said vertical support is between 5 and 30 feet tall. However, there a finite number of possible heights for robot when extended that can range from 1-N feet tall.
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention, to have the height of the robot extended between 5-30 feet tall and incorporated into the system of the combination since there are a finite number of identified predictable potential solutions (i.e. height of the robot extended) to the recognized need (scanning locations outside of the robot area) and one of ordinary skill in the art could have pursued the known potential solutions with a reasonable expectation of success (the cost and benefits are known), and further enable the reader antennas to dynamically scan a plurality of heights for potential RFID tags, see Deyle para. 281.
Claim(s) 9-10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Davidson, Kowalski, Lee, and Official Notice combination as applied to claim(s) 1, and further in view of Norman et al. (US 20250127297 A1, hereinafter Norman).
Regarding claims 9 and 10, the combination does not disclose Claim 9 “wherein said movable structure is supported by casters and moved by at least one of more motorized casters.”, Claim 10 “wherein said movable structure further includes a manual controller which can control speed and rotation direction of the motorized casters.”
Norman discloses: [0027]-[0029] movement is facilitated by casters…”a system that generally relies upon manual movement of the mobile racks 102 (i.e., pushed by a human operator), the means by which the racks 102 are transported are not limited to solely manual propulsion. In some embodiments the racks 102 may have a built-in battery and/or motor, and whose movements are guided with assistance from electronic circuits and sensors”
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention, to modify the combination to include the above limitations as taught by Norman, in order to facilitate movement, see Norman para. 27.
Claim(s) 11 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Davidson, Kowalski, Lee, and Official Notice combination as applied to claim(s) 1, and further in view of Sanchez et al. (US 20070268133 A1, hereinafter Sanchez).
Regarding claim 11, the combination does not disclose: wherein the means to record the horizontal distance the movable structure has traversed is a manual input that the user activates when a predetermined distance has been traversed.
Sanchez discloses: [0038] “Provides the means for the operator to activate the laser pointer functionality of the system and to activate the last motion tracking functionality of the system”
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention, to modify the combination to include the above limitations as taught by Sanchez, in order to provide ongoing status reports of the tracked location, see Sanchez para. 38.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed on 11/03/2025 have been fully considered but they are moot in view of the new grounds of rejection necessitated by amendments.
Regarding the 35 USC 101 rejection, the Remarks, specifically page 7 is considered, and the rejection is withdrawn because the movable structured that has the electronic identifiable antennas positioned on the movable device that captures RFID data and provide horizontal distance when capturing the unique identifier for the inventory software is considered an unconventional arrangement.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any extension fee pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to VANESSA DELIGI whose telephone number is (571)272-0503. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Friday 07:30AM-5PM.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Florian (Ryan) Zeender can be reached on (571) 272-6790. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/VANESSA DELIGI/Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3627
/FLORIAN M ZEENDER/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3627