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 .
Claim Objections
Claims 1 and 13-14 objected to because of the following informalities:
Claim 1 line 7, claim 13 line 9, and claim 14 line 12 read "currently wailing direction" which appears to be a typographical error and should read "current walking direction" to improve clarity and maintain continuity.
Claim 14 line 3 reads "a obstacle" which appears to be a conjugation error and should read "an obstacle" to improve clarity.
Claim 13 line 7 and claim 14 line 10 read "passage, ," which appears to be a typographical error and should read "passage," to improve clarity.
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Interpretation
“Narrow passage” is being understood as defined within the specification as an area with a width within a predetermined range in view of ¶ 0033 of the specification. I.e., “narrow” is understood as definite and not a merely relative term in light of at least ¶ 0033 of the specification.
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 5-6 and 19-20 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 applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claims 5 and 19 recite using a currently fitted positioning contour line segment (hereinafter CFPCLS) for determining a traveling direction before entering a narrow passage and after identifying the narrow passage. Since the CFPCLS is determined in claims 1 and 13 after entering the narrow passage, a paradox occurs. I.e., the CFPCLS is required to be known before entering the passageway, but the CFPCLS is only determined after entering the passageway. It is unclear how this is possible in light of the claims as written and thus the claims are indefinite. Examiner recommends that the CFPCLS in claims 5 and 19 are amended to have separate antecedent basis and/or that the applicant provide clarification in remarks and/or amendments as to how the CFPCLS is determined before entering passage (assuming that the CFPCLS is a continuously updated variable that is updated to represent the most recently generated contour).
Claim(s) 6 and 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being dependent on rejected claims 5 and 19 and failing to cure the deficiencies listed above.
Claims 6 and 20 have paradoxical antecedent basis regarding the obstacle. The obstacle of claims 1 and 13 is collided with in claims 6 and 20 before the robot has identified a narrow passage. Thus, a paradox occurs wherein an obstacle that is collided with only after entering the passage of claims 1 and 13 is also collided with in claims 6 and 20. A review of the disclosure shows Figure 2 as an example performance of the method wherein an obstacle that the robot collided with before the detection of a narrow passage (corresponding to contour A0-B0) is a different obstacle than the obstacle collided with after entering a narrow passage (A2-B2). Since no example is provided on performing the method wherein the object collided before identifying a passage and after entering the passage are one and the same, it is unclear how the method steps of claims 6 and 20 are performed followed by the method steps of claims 1 and 13. Examiner recommends that the obstacle collided with in claims 6 and 20 should be amended to have separate antecedent basis.
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.
Claim(s) 1 and 13-14 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ni et al. CN 113219967 A (hereinafter Ni; a translated copy has been provided by the applicant which the examiner relies upon) in view of Wang et al. CN 111949021 A (hereinafter Wang; a translated copy has been provided by the examiner which the examiner relies upon) and Okazaki US 20210041888 A1 (hereinafter Okazaki).
Regarding claims 1 and 13-14,
Ni teaches
A robot (Abstract “mobile robot”) equipped with a distance sensor (¶ 0042 “ranging radar”; see also ¶ 0055 “lidar”), wherein the robot is provided with a chip storing program code (¶ 0072 discloses a memory storing instructions that are executable by a processor to perform the method), wherein when the program code is executed, a navigation method for a robot to pass through a narrow passage is implemented (Abstract discloses the robot traveling through the narrow passage), the method comprising:
operation S1 of when the robot collides with the obstacle after entering the narrow passage (¶ 0018 discloses detecting a collision when traveling through a narrow channel), the robot then rotating until a current walking direction of the robot is consistent with a preset travel direction of the currently fitted positioning contour line segment or the current walking direction of the robot is deflected by a preset angle towards a passable area of the narrow passage relative to the currently fitted positioning contour line segment, so that the robot is not currently blocked by the obstacle from moving forward (¶ 0018 discloses deflecting in a opposite direction by a preset angle to move straight again); and
operation S2 of the robot walking straight in the current walking direction until it collides with the obstacle and then the robot proceeding to execute the operation S1 (¶ 0018 discloses repeating the method to navigate through the channel);
wherein the operation S2 is executed by the robot after the operation S1 (¶ 0018); and the robot stops executing the operation S1 when the robot determines that the robot has passed through the narrow passage (¶ 0056-0063, for example, provide details that the method is repeated to navigate through the passage, avoiding the channel if the number of collisions is larger than a threshold, which implies that the method stops being performed once the robot has been determined to have successfully traveled through the channel otherwise bypassing the channel after a number of collisions has occurred may illogically occur after already having already traveled through the channel).
Ni does not teach that
the chip is configured to control the robot to use the distance sensor to detect point cloud data of an obstacle and correspondingly fit a positioning contour line segment from the point cloud data, so as to execute a navigation method for a robot to pass through a narrow passage, further comprising:
operation S1 of the robot fitting a positioning contour line segment, as a currently fitted positioning contour line segment, for an obstacle, the robot then rotating until a current walking direction of the robot is consistent with a preset travel direction of the currently fitted positioning contour line segment.
Wang teaches
A robot equipped with a distance sensor (Abstract discloses a robot with obstacle sensors; ¶ 0040 “obstacle sensors include lidar”), wherein the robot is provided with a chip storing program code (¶ 0041 discloses a memory storing instructions that are executable by a processor to perform the method), which is configured to control the robot to use the distance sensor to detect point cloud data of an obstacle (¶ 0009 “Obstacles are detected using the aforementioned obstacle sensors”; Abstract “extracting at least three feature points of the obstacle”) and correspondingly fit a positioning contour line segment from the point cloud data (Abstract “fitting the curvature of at least part of the contour line of the corresponding obstacle based on the at least three feature points”), so as to execute a navigation method for a robot (Abstract), further comprising:
operation S1 of the robot fitting a positioning contour line segment, as a currently fitted positioning contour line segment, for an obstacle (Abstract “fitting the curvature of at least part of the contour line of the corresponding obstacle”), the robot then rotating until a current walking direction of the robot is consistent with a preset travel direction of the currently fitted positioning contour line segment (Abstract “controlling the self-propelled robot to advance according to the curvature”).
It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to have modified Ni to incorporate the teachings of Wang such that an object collided with in a narrow space in the teachings of Ni can be fit with a contour such that the robot can, as an alternative option, follow the curvature of the obstacle. This modification would be made with a reasonable expectation of success to reduce the number of collisions sustained by the robot when traveling while also reducing the reliance on map data that may not be accurate or up-to-date as taught by Wang (¶ 0006-0008 for example).
Ni does not explicitly teach that
the robot stops executing the operation S1 when the robot reaches a preset target position.
While this may be further implicitly obtained in Ni since the method of Ni repeats while traveling through a narrow passage thus implying that the method is stopped at a target position (i.e. the end of a narrow passage), for completeness of record, Okazaki will be relied upon for this limitation.
Okazaki teaches that
the robot stops executing the operation S1 when the robot reaches a preset target position (Figure 6 shows that after arriving to a target position S14 and determining that all operations are complete S16, the vehicle goes into a standby state; see also ¶ 0238).
It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to have further modified Ni to incorporate the teachings of Ozaki such that after passing through a narrow passage according to the teachings of Ni, all operations of the robot can be halted and the robot can enter a standby mode if the robot reaches a preset target position and no other operations exist to be completed as taught by Okazaki. This modification would be made with a reasonable expectation of success to reduce power usage when the robot’s services are no longer needed.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-4, and 7-12 and 15-18 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.
Claims 5-6 and 19-20 would be allowable if rewritten to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), 2nd paragraph, set forth in this Office action and to include all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
Claims 2 and 16 read as follows:
in the operation S1, for each positioning contour line segment fitted by the robot, the robot sets an endpoint of the positioning contour line segment that forms a shortest passable path relative to the preset target position as a target endpoint of the positioning contour line segment,
wherein the shortest passable path is located within the passable area of the narrow passage entered by the robot, the robot configures a direction of an end point of the positioning contour line segment other than the target endpoint pointing to the target endpoint as the preset travel direction of the positioning contour line segment.
None of the prior art of record teaches these limitations as a whole or in combination. Wang merely generically teaches the generation of contours and does not detail generation of a contour direction as detailed in claims 2 and 16. Other similar methods for path planning exist in prior art.
For example, Zhou et al. CN 114777793 A (hereinafter Zhou; a translated copy has been provided by the examiner which the examiner relies upon) teaches an entirely meshed environment including wall outlines wherein a robot plans a path that is shortest to a goal by searching the environment for straight line paths to the goal and/or a combination of straight line paths that connect node endpoints of the wall outlines (see at least Figure 15). This arrives at a similar intent of the claimed invention (efficient straight line based traveling based on traveling towards contour endpoints that are closest to a target position), but Zhou doesn't travel along a contour but rather a line from a current location to the contour end point. Thus, Zhou doesn't actually determine contour directionality. Additionally, the stationary scanning of Zhou is far more efficient and non-combinable with the details of at least claim 1 wherein path planning only occurs as path diversion from a generic straight line path due to encountering an obstacle.
For another example, “Optimization Maze Robot Using A* and Flood Fill Algorithm” by Semuil et al. (hereinafter Semuil) discloses performing a flood fill algorithm for path finding. This thus has a diversion based path planning, but Semuil travels to open areas based on closeness to an endpoint rather than to contour endpoints based on closeness to the target position. Thus, while Semuil consequentially follows walls, it doesn’t actually determine the contour directionality of the walls as required in claims 2 and 16.
The claimed method appears to be less efficient than Zhou or Semuil regarding production of the quickest straight line based path to a target location. For example, in the environment of Zhou (see Figure 15), the claimed method would likely bounce off multiple walls of Zhou before arriving at the target location whereas the method of Zhou efficiently navigates to two points creating an objectively shortest path. Similarly, in the environment of Semuil (see Figures 8-16), the claimed method would likely ignore forks in a narrow passageway in favor of continuing traveling in a straight direction following a contour direction until collision occurs whereas the method of Semuil changes robot direction based on whatever accessible direction is closest to the target destination. One of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing in view of the prior art of record would not likely find the invention of record regarding the generation of a contour directionality obvious but instead would choose to recreate one of the existing and efficient path planning methods detailed in the prior art of record if the shortest, straight-line-based path to a destination was desired. Therefore, claims 2 and 16 contain allowable subject matter. Claims 3-12, 15, and 17-20 also contain allowable subject matter due to dependency on claims 2 or 16.
Documents Considered but not Relied Upon
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Xin et al. CN 114489050 A discloses detecting a collision with an obstacle, generating a contour for the obstacle, and following the contour.
Conclusion
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/A.T.S./Examiner, Art Unit 3669
/Erin M Piateski/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3669
