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 .
Summary
This communication is a First Office Action Non-Final Rejection on the merits.
Claims 1 – 20 are currently pending and considered below.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 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.
Claims 1 – 5 and 7 – 16 and 18 – 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Spasovski (WO 2022164334 A2).
As per claim 1, Spasovski teaches the limitations of:
determining a movement route of a smart logistics vehicle destined for a specific area based on an inputted production information and outputting the determined movement route (See at least paragraph 1; The present invention relates generally to transportation systems for transporting persons and/or goods between source locations and destination locations. The inventions maybe applied to the central control of a fleet of individually routed vehicles on a system of dedicated roadways.);
identifying a location of the smart logistics vehicle travelling along the movement route and outputting a first control signal corresponding to the identified location of the smart logistics vehicle to a process controller corresponding to the specific area (See at least paragraph 147 – 148; Centralized control of an entire fleet of controllable vehicles may be performed by a central computer which is connected to all of the vehicles in the fleet by way of individual onboard vehicle controllers located on the vehicles. Advantageously, the central computer system may track the location of every vehicle in the system. The central computer system can also know future locations of each vehicle for which a trip has been scheduled in any upcoming time step. This information may be used to efficiently schedule point to point trips for users of the system. The central computer may be responsible for coordinating and instructing individual vehicles within the fleet of vehicles to travel on certain routes based on any of a number of factors and criteria, such as customer destination, shortest travel time, and traffic volumes, as further described herein.); and
identifying an interlock state corresponding to an entry requirement of the specific area from the process controller based on the outputted first control signal during the movement of the smart logistics vehicle and outputting or holding a second control signal which enables stopping the smart logistics vehicle based on the interlock state (See at least paragraph 14 and 163; each local controller is provided with a location and time at which the vehicle will arrive at the area controlled by the local controller and the local controller determines a time at which the vehicle can be presented either at the destination or at a location of handoff to a subsequent one of the series of local controllers along the possible route. In some embodiment, each local controller determines a specific route from a location at which the vehicle enters the area for which the local controller is responsible and a location at which the vehicle will leave the area for which the local controller is responsible. … Each individual vehicle within vehicle layer 220 comprises a vehicle controller 232. Vehicle controller 232 may comprise control hardware to guide the operation of vehicles herein (such as vehicles 305). For example, vehicle controller 232 may issue a torque signal to one or more motors of vehicle 305 to thereby control the vehicle’s motion. Vehicle controller 232 further comprises a wireless data transmitter and receiver for communicating with local controllers and with a corresponding vehicle.).
As per claim 2, Spasovski teaches the limitations of:
wherein the production information includes: at least one of an operation information of a production robot for the specific area, a production facility information, or a production facility logistics release information (See at least paragraph 13 – 14).
As per claim 3, Spasovski teaches the limitations of:
wherein the outputting the movement route includes:
determining whether to deploy for at least one process based on the production information (See at least paragraph 12 – 13) ; and
determining the movement route of the smart logistics vehicle destined to the specific area corresponding to the process for which the deployment is determined (See at least paragraph 13 – 14).
As per claim 4, Spasovski teaches the limitations of:
wherein the determining whether to deploy includes:
determining whether to deploy by utilizing a memory map prestored in order to correspond to the production information (See at least paragraph 60).
As per claim 5, Spasovski teaches the limitations of:
wherein the smart logistics vehicle includes: at least one of an autonomous mobile robot (AMR) and an automated guided vehicle (AGV) (See at least paragraph 233
As per claim 6, Spasovski teaches the limitations of:
wherein the location of the smart logistics vehicle is identified based on a result of detecting surrounding objects by a sensor connected to the AMR when the smart logistics vehicle travelling along the movement route is the AMR (See at least paragraph 237).
As per claim 8, Spasovski teaches the limitations of:
wherein the first control signal corresponds to an operation state of the smart logistics vehicle (See at least paragraph 169).
As per claim 9, Spasovski teaches the limitations of:
wherein the outputting and holding the second control signal includes:
setting an interlock area corresponding to the specific area on the movement route (See at least paragraph 175 – 176); and
outputting or holding the second control signal based on the interlock state when the smart logistics vehicle enters the set interlock area (See at least paragraph 175 – 176).
As per claim 10, Spasovski teaches the limitations of:
wherein when the smart logistics vehicle arrives at the specific area or stops according to the second control signal, a process of the method is returned to the outputting the movement route (See at least paragraph 175 – 176 and 182).
Regarding claims 11 – 16 and 18 - 20:
Claims 11 – 16 and 18 – 20 are rejected using the same rationale, mutatis mutandis, applied to claims 1 – 5 and 7 – 10 above, respectively.
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.
Claims 6 and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Spasovski in view of Vangal et al. (Hereinafter Vangal) (WO 2022118656 A1).
As per claim 6, Spasovski teaches all the limitations of the claim but does not explicitly teach the limitation of:
wherein the location of the smart logistics vehicle is identified based on whether the smart logistics vehicle passes nodes disposed apart at multiple points on the movement route or not.
Vangal teaches the limitation of:
wherein the location of the smart logistics vehicle is identified based on whether the smart logistics vehicle passes nodes disposed apart at multiple points on the movement route or not (page 3 paragraph 4 and page 5 paragraph 2).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to include wherein the location of the smart logistics vehicle is identified based on whether the smart logistics vehicle passes nodes disposed apart at multiple points on the movement route or not as taught by Vangal in the system of Spasovski, since the claimed invention is merely a combination of old elements, and in the combination each element merely would have performed the same function as it did separately, and one of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that the results of the combination were predictable.
Regarding claim 17:
Claim 17 is rejected using the same rationale, mutatis mutandis, applied to claim 6 above, respectively.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Khawaja et al. (US 2018/0307245 A1) discloses autonomous vehicle corridor.
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/IG T AN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3662
IG T AN
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 3662
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