DETAILED ACTION
This application is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Election/Restrictions
Applicant's election with traverse in the reply filed on 11/21/2025 is acknowledged. Applicant’s arguments are found to be persuasive and the election of species requirement is withdrawn. Claim 3 is rejoined.
Drawings
The drawings are acceptable.
Claim Rejections - 35 U.S.C. § 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.
Claims 1-4 and 6-8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 112(b) as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
Claim 1: Because of the way Claim 1 is written, it is unclear whether each of the “plurality of arms” of the robot has a single “joint” or multiple “joints,” and whether each “joint” of the robot has a single “power transmission mechanism” or multiple “power transmission mechanisms,” and whether the robot comprises a single “first reducer” or multiple “first reducers.” Based on the Office’s understanding of Applicant’s disclosure, the Office has attempted to re-write Claim 1 in the rejection below under 35 U.S.C. 102 to clarify these issues for Applicant and promote compact prosecution.
Claim Rejections - 35 U.S.C. § 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 1 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2021/0053210 A1 to Tamura et al., which discloses:
Claim 1: A robot 200 (see FIG. 5) comprising:
a base 27; and
a robot arm 22, 21 coupled to the base 27, the robot arm 22, 21 including a plurality of arms 22, 21, [each arm of] the [plurality of] arms 22, 21 having [a] respective [joint] 14, 12, [each of] the joints 14, 12 having [a] respective power transmission [mechanism] 44, 42, wherein
[each] power transmission [mechanism 44, 42 has] a [reducer] 44, 42 of an epicyclic gear type (see Paragraph [0024] “For example, the speed reducer 40 may be a… simple planetary gear type speed reducer”), and
[wherein a first] power transmission mechanism 42 in [a first joint 12] is positioned on a farther side of [a second reducer 44; and]
[wherein the first power transmission mechanism 42] is lighter in weight than the [second reducer 44] (see Paragraph [0042], the Office submits that the following disclosure reads on this claim limitation: “For this reason, the resin proportion of the second speed reducer 44 is lower than the resin proportion of the first speed reducer 42… The resin proportion of the second speed reducer is set to be within a range of 40% to 60% in the embodiment. In this case, it is advantageous from a perspective of mitigating impact and maintaining accuracy (italics used for emphasis)”).
Claim Rejections - 35 U.S.C. § 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.
Claims 6-7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2021/0053210 A1 to Tamura et al., as applied to Claim 1, further in view of U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2022/0241960 A1 to Hama et al.
Claim 6: Tamura discloses the robot according to claim 1, wherein
the robot arm 22, 21 includes[:]
a first arm 22 coupled to the base 27 via a first joint 14 so as to be rotatable around a first rotation axis J2, the first joint 14 being one of the joints 14, 12 which comes first from the base 27,
a second arm 21 coupled to the first arm 22 via a second joint 12 so as to be rotatable around a second rotation axis J1, the second joint 12 being one of the joints 14, 12 which comes second from the base 27, the second rotation axis J1 being parallel to the first rotation axis J2, and
a shaft 28b that moves along a third rotation axis via a third joint 28 relative to the second arm 21, the third joint being one of the joints that comes third from the base 27, the third rotation axis being parallel to the first rotation axis J2, wherein
the power transmission mechanism in the second joint 12 has a second reducer 42 of an epicyclic gear type, the second reducer 42 being lighter in weight than the first reducer 44.
Tamura does not expressly disclose wherein the power transmission mechanism in the third joint 28 has a pulley and a belt.
Hama teaches a similar robot in which a power transmission mechanism 181 in a third joint 150 has a pulley 33, 34 and a belt 42.
In view of the Hama teaching, the Office finds that it would have been obvious to those having ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective date of filing to modify, with a reasonable expectation of success, the robot disclosed by Tamura, such that the power transmission mechanism in the third joint 28 has a pulley and a belt, similar to the Hama teaching, in order to drive rotation of the shaft 28b, which is a common configuration of SCARA robots (as evidenced by Hama).
Claim 7: Paragraph [0042] of Tamura discloses that “the resin proportion of the second speed reducer 44 is lower than the resin proportion of the first speed reducer 42… The resin proportion of the second speed reducer is set to be within a range of 40% to 60% in the embodiment. In this case, it is advantageous from a perspective of mitigating impact and maintaining accuracy.”
In view of Paragraph [0042] of Tamura cited above, the Office finds that it would have been obvious to those having ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective date of filing to attain, with a reasonable expectation of success, the robot disclosed by Tamura, as modified above by Hama to include a pulley and a belt within the third joint, such that a ratio of a weight of the first reducer to a weight of the second reducer is in a range from 0.3 to 0.9, in order to mitigate impact and maintain accuracy, as taught by Tamura.
Claim 8 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2021/0053210 A1 to Tamura et al., as applied to Claim 1, further in view of U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2018/0361521 A1 to Takeda.
Claim 8: Tamura discloses a robot system comprising:
the robot according to claim 1.
Tamura does not disclose the “rack,” “conveyor,” and “workpieces” recited in Claim 8.
Takeda teaches a similar SCARA robot system which comprises:
a rack F in which the robot is installed; and
a conveyor (Paragraph [0159]) that sequentially transports a plurality of workpieces W,
the robot being configured to continuously process the plurality of workpieces being transported by the conveyor.
In view of the Takeda teaching, the Office finds that it would have been obvious to those having ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective date of filing to modify the robot disclosed by Tamura, such that it is incorporated in a robot system comprising:
a rack in which the robot is installed; and
a conveyor that sequentially transports a plurality of workpieces,
wherein the robot is configured to continuously process the plurality of workpieces being transported by the conveyor, in order to pick-and-place workpieces in an assembly line.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-4 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, and re-written to overcome the clarity issues under 35 U.S.C. 112 described above.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2021/0053210 A1 to Tamura et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2022/0241960 A1 to Hama et al., and U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2018/0361521 A1 to Takeda. are the closest prior art.
Claim 2: Tamura discloses the robot according to claim 1, wherein
[a] first reducer [of the reducers] includes[:]
an internal gear having a ring shape,
a sun gear disposed inside the internal gear and coaxially with the internal gear,
a plurality of epicyclic gears engaging with both the internal gear and the sun gear, and
a carrier rotatably supporting each of the epicyclic gears (the preceding limitations relating to the “first reducer” are inherent; that is, planetary gear type reducers as disclosed in Paragraph [0024] comprise an internal gear, a sun gear, epicyclic gears, and a carrier).
Tamura does not expressly disclose [wherein] the internal gear [has] higher elasticity than the epicyclic gears. Rather, Tamura discloses an internal gear which has a lower elasticity than the epicyclic gears. Thus, the Offices finds that a modification to attain an opposite arrangement would not have been obvious to those having ordinary skill in the art.
Conclusion
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/RANDELL J KRUG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3618