DETAILED ACTION
This Non-Final Office action is in response to Applicant’s filing on 9/10/25. Claims 1-16 are pending. The effective filing date of the claimed invention is 02/20/2023.
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 § 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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claim(s) 1-6, 8-14, 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Pat. Pub. No. 2009/0248198 to Siegel in view of U.S. Pat. No. 8469269 to Daily.
With regard to claims 1, 8, 9, 16, Siegel discloses the claimed:
a rack that stores a plurality of packs of cigarettes, wherein the rack comprises a first communication interface (Siegel e.g. Fig. 2, [0045-46] fully capable of storing packs of cigarettes, or other items, and abstract explaining the rack having ability to send the data to central receiver; see Siegel, Fig. 1, 12, where the shelf/rack appears to be holding packs of cigarettes, or similar items);
an interaction device configured to process data interactions involving one or more of the packs of cigarettes (Siegel, e.g. [0042], rung up by cashier at POS);
a memory that stores messages received from the rack and the interaction device (Siegel, e.g. abstract, central processing unit in user device that maintains the data); and
a master controller communicatively coupled to the memory, the rack and the interaction device, wherein the master controller comprises a second communication interface and a processor (Siegel, e.g. [0041] Fig. 1 user device 32), wherein the processor is configured to:
receive using the second communication interface a first communication signal comprising a first message from the first communication interface of the rack, wherein the first message comprises an indication that a first number of packs has been removed from the rack (Siegel, [0005-6] the sensor emitting a first output signal corresponding to an instantaneous location of the pusher in relation to the track; [0040] Data regarding activity pertaining to the same can be acquired, logged as to date, time, quantity and the like, employed for various activities including inventory control, sending of out of stock alerts to personnel by means of the PDAs 44, focusing visual monitoring of areas of interest through the CCTV system 40 by means of the router 28 and user device 32, and issuing a wide variety of reports through the printer 36 to facilitate the implementation of improved stocking and management techniques.), a time stamp comprising a time at which the first number of packs were removed from the rack (see Siegel, [0042] According to another feature of the system 10, products are time-stamped as they are stocked on the shelves, time-stamped when they are removed by a customer and time-stamped when they are rung up by a cashier.), and a universal product code (UPC) associated with a type of the packs of cigarettes stored in the rack (Siegel, e.g. [0047] [0050]);
monitor second communication signals received from the interaction device using the second communication interface, wherein the second communication signals are indicative of the data interactions performed at the interaction device (Siegel, e.g. [0042] products are time-stamped as they are stocked on the shelves, time-stamped when they are removed by a customer and time-stamped when they are rung up by a cashier.);
determine, based on the monitoring, that a first data interaction involving the first number of packs associated with the UPC was not conducted at the interaction device within a pre-configured time-period of the time included in the time stamp (Siegel, e.g. [0042] if the shelf system detects that an unusually high number of items have been removed from a shelf since a previous measurement, and no such items have been rung up by a cashier for a predetermined time period, then an alert can be sent to a manager indicating that a potential shop lifting event is in progress or has occurred. To further this example, it may be determined that the average time that a customer spends in a given type of store is 15 minutes. In this case, the predetermined time period may be set to 15 minutes. If a large number of product packages are removed from the shelf 12 and not rung up within 15 minutes, an "inactivity" alert is sent to the user device 32 or one of the other means for alerting a store employee (e.g., sound system, CCTV, PDA, etc.).); and
in response to determining that the first data interaction involving the first number of packs associated with the UPC was not conducted within the pre- configured time-period of the time included in the time stamp, transmit an alert message comprising the first number of the packs and the UPC associated with the type of the packs (Siegel, e.g. [0042] Siegel transmits an inactivity or shoplifting alert based on the number and identity of products removed. Product, track, shelf, quantity, date, time data are all available to the alerting system. To be clear, Siegel [0042] does disclose where the alert can include the video of the user and the items that were taken from the shelf more for more than the predetermined time period without being paid for. The specific requirement that the alert has the number of items and the UPC of each item is not explicitly taught by Siegel. See Daily, Fig. 16, col. 6, ln. 25-40, showing that a database record (or alert shown to user) shows, among other things, the UPC of each pack, and name, and purchase status of each pack, price, RFID tag identifier, etc. It is common to display data of known information, and that is what Applicant has claimed here. In other words, Siegel’s retail shelf supply monitoring system and associated alerting system of e.g. [0042] could be adjusted to include the data of Daily, Fig. 16, including, for each pack, the UPC, name, purchase status of pack (stolen, sold, not sold, etc.), price RFID tag identifier, for instance, and when Siegel is adjusted to include such data this data could also be provided to the user device e.g. store employee where the employee would find benefit in this data in that it is simply more identifying data of the elements being monitoring, the item being watched, and the user. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the rack monitoring art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Siegel’s retail shelf monitoring system and associated alerting system to include the data of Daily, Fig. 16, including, for each pack, the UPC, name, purchase status of pack (stolen, sold, not sold, etc.), price RFID tag identifier, for instance, and when Siegel is adjusted to include such data this data could also be provided to the user device e.g. store employee where the employee would find benefit in this data in that it is simply more identifying data of the elements being monitoring, the item being watched, and the user.).
With regard to claims 2, 10, Siegel further discloses the rack is associated with a rack number; the first message comprises the rack number of the rack; wherein the processor is further configured to transmit the rack number of the rack as part of the alert message (see e.g. [0079] track system and/or shelf serial number).
With regard to claims 3, 11, Siegel further discloses record a time at which the first message was received from the rack; and transmit as part of the alert message a second timestamp comprising the recorded time (Siegel explains that shelf activity data is transmitted from the shelf circuitry by RF signal to a receiver, router, and central user device. The data concerning product activity is “acquired” and “logged as to date, time, quantity, and the like.” Siegel further states that alerts generated from the shelf-monitoring conditions can themselves be “timestamped and logged.” Siegel, [0040] [0044]).
With regard to claims 4, 12, Siegel further discloses the processor is further configured to transmit the time stamp as part of the alert message (Siegel e.g. [0042]; Daily Fig. 16; see combination above).
With regard to claims 5, 13, Siegel further discloses receive a third communication signal comprising a second message from the first communication interface of the rack, wherein the second message comprises an indication that a second number of packs has been removed from the rack, a second time stamp comprising a second time at which the second number of packs were removed from the rack, and the UPC associated with the type of the packs of cigarettes stored in the rack; receive a third message from the interaction device within the pre-configured time-period from the second time of the second time stamp, wherein the third message comprises an indication of a second data interaction conducted at the interaction device involving the second number of packs associated with the UPC; and in response to receiving the third message, record that the second data interaction involving the second number of packs associated with the UPC that was removed from the rack was completed (repeating steps from claim 1, see MPEP 2144.04(VI) Duplication of Parts, with no new or unexpected result produced from the duplication of parts).
With regard to claims 6, 14, Siegel further discloses: the indication of the second data interaction conducted at the interaction device comprises a second UPC associated with each pack that was involved in the second data interaction; the processor is further configured to:compare the second UPC associated with each pack that was involved in the second data interaction with the UPC associated with the second number of packs removed from the rack;determine that the second UPC associated with the second number of packs involved as part of the second data interaction matches with the UPC associated with the second number of packs removed from the rack; andin response to determining that the second UPC associated with the second number of packs involved as part of the second data interaction matches with the UPC associated with the second number of packs removed from the rack, determining that the second data interaction involving the second number of packs associated with the UPC that was removed from the rack was completed (repeating steps from claim 1, see MPEP 2144.04(VI) Duplication of Parts, with no new or unexpected result produced from the duplication of parts).
Claim(s) 7, 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Siegel, Daily, and further in view of U.S. Pat. Pub. No. 2005/0131578 to Weaver.
With regard to claims 7, 15, Siegel further discloses where pusher position is periodically measured, known package dimensions are used to convert pusher position into the number of packages remaining, transmission may occur only where there is a change relative to a previous measurement, and the system continuously monitors product count, removal, and replacement. See Siegel, throughout. Siegel also discloses [0046] “pusher position can be divided by a corresponding package dimension to determine a number of packages remaining between the pusher 66 and the front rail 64.” Siegel, [0048] “the transceiver need only send measurement information to the user device if there is a change in pusher position relative to a previous measurement.” Thus Siegel inherently maintains or has access to a prior count and a later count. However, Siegel does not disclose the precise operation of subtracting the later count from the prior count and then replacing the stored prior count with the later count. See Weaver describing a shelf or hanger monitoring system that determines the number of items currently stored (abstract), stores prior sensor measurements and inventory counts ([104]), compares new measurements with the stored measurements (e.g. abstract [0009] ), uses addition and subtraction to determine the change ([0075] As detailed in the software flowchart, the monitoring process primarily involves addition and subtraction and therefore only has relatively minimal computational requirements. In this regard, addition and subtraction play a primary role in recognizing changes in the readings provided by the sensor strips simply by comparing new readings provided by each sensor strip 21 with that stored and then storing the net change.), communicates item removal changes to a central host/database ([0007] throughout), and updates an inventory tracking database with the new count ([0037] [0052] etc.). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to modify Siegel to include such calculations as shown in Weaver as this is beneficial to determine more information about the information already presented, and updating stored database numbers based on real live situations.
Conclusion
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/PETER LUDWIG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3627
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