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.
Claims 1-34 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Barajas, et al., US 2011/0071679 A1, in view of Govindarajan, US 2019/0054631 A1.
As per Claim 1, Barajas teaches a humanoid robot system (¶¶ 20-22), comprising:
at least one humanoid robot (¶ 20; humanoid robot 10 of Figure 1); and
a control system communicably coupled to the at least one humanoid robot (¶ 23; distributed controller 24 of Figure 1) and configured to perform operations comprising:
executing a mission creator to create one or more working tasks for the at least one humanoid robot (¶¶ 25-27).
Barajas does not expressly teach executing a mission assignor to assign one or more working tasks to the at least one humanoid robot. Govindarajan teaches executing a mission assignor to assign one or more working tasks to the at least one humanoid robot (¶ 27; as “configured to coordinate other units in the system to execute the list of tasks based on the input from perception unit 104”). At the time of the invention, a person of skill in the art would have thought it obvious to operate the humanoid robot of Barajas with a control system like the one that Govindarajan teaches, in order to handle sudden or unforeseen changes more effectively.
As per Claim 18, Barajas teaches a method of operating a humanoid robot system (¶¶ 24-25), comprising:
initializing, with a control system, at least one humanoid robot within a humanoid robot system (¶ 23; distributed controller 24 of Figure 1); and
executing, with the control system, a mission creator to create one or more working tasks for the at least one humanoid robot (¶¶ 25-27).
Barajas does not expressly teach: executing, with the control system, a mission assignor to assign one or more working tasks to the at least one humanoid robot. Govindarajan teaches executing, with the control system, a mission assignor to assign one or more working tasks to the at least one humanoid robot (¶ 27; as “configured to coordinate other units in the system to execute the list of tasks based on the input from perception unit 104”). See Claim 1 above for the rationale based on obviousness, motivations and reasons to combine.
As per Claims 2 and 19, Barajas teaches that the operations further comprise executing a diagnostic tool on the at least one humanoid robot (¶¶ 26, 31).
As per Claims 3 and 20, Barajas teaches that the operations further comprise providing a communication from the at least one humanoid robot to a human operator (¶ 26; “a graphical user interface (GUI) providing an operator with an intuitive or menu-driven set of functional options for limited control over the robot 10” as in Figure 1).
As per Claims 4 and 21, Barajas teaches that the at least one humanoid robot comprises one or more eyes, a mouth, and a chest display (¶ 20; on head 12 of Figure 1), and that providing the communication from the at least one humanoid robot to the human operator comprises activating one or more of the one or more eyes, the mouth, or the chest display to provide a visual communication (¶ 46; as “modules/nodes may constantly exchange messages with the system commander 25 of FIG. 2 via a normal control command”).
As per Claims 5 and 22, Barajas teaches that the communication comprises at least one of: a boot-up sequence; a boot up greeting; a processing and confirmation communication; a working communication; a greeting during a working task communication; a maintenance mode communication; an error communication (¶ 46; “they report a parity code to determine if the parameters are still valid or if they have been corrupted for any reason”); or a charging communication.
As per Claims 6 and 23, Barajas teaches that the visual communication comprises a light communication with one or more LEDs (¶ 44).
As per Claims 7 and 24, Barajas teaches that the control system comprises a handheld controller (¶ 39; “e.g., a laptop computer or mobile electronic device, may be connected at any desired level to the state machine 80 via hardware connection 91 using a local interface 92” as in Figure 4).
As per Claims 8 and 25, Barajas does not expressly teach that the controller is in wireless communication with the at least one humanoid robot. Govindarajan teaches that the controller is in wireless communication with the at least one humanoid robot (¶ 27; via “a wireless communication network”). See Claim 1 above for the rationale based on obviousness, motivations and reasons to combine.
As per Claims 9 and 26, Barajas teaches that the operations further comprise controlling the at least one humanoid robot to perform a movement of the at least one humanoid robot with the handheld controller (¶¶ 19, 23).
As per Claims 10 and 27, Barajas teaches that the movement comprises at least one of: walking, squatting, rotating an upper body assembly of the at least one humanoid robot, rotating the at least one humanoid robot, picking up an object (¶ 23; “for manipulating an object 20 that may be grasped by the fingers 19 and thumb 21 of one or more hands 18” as in Figure 1), or bending over.
As per Claims 11 and 28, Barajas does not expressly teach that the operations further comprise presenting an image on the hand-held controller taken by the at least one humanoid robot. Govindarajan teaches that the operations further comprise presenting an image on the hand-held controller taken by the at least one humanoid robot (¶ 28; “a vision (e.g., a image of the environmental condition) and distance information about the working environment condition or one or more applications enabling to create map of the work environment condition for navigation”). See Claim 1 above for the rationale based on obviousness, motivations and reasons to combine.
As per Claims 12 and 29, Barajas does not expressly teach that the operations further comprise presenting an identification of the at least one humanoid robot among a team of humanoid robots on the hand-held controller. Govindarajan teaches that the operations further comprise presenting an identification of the at least one humanoid robot among a team of humanoid robots on the hand-held controller (¶ 28; “configured to (i) identify a finger print of the user for security purpose of the humanoid robot 102”). See Claim 1 above for the rationale based on obviousness, motivations and reasons to combine.
As per Claims 13 and 30, Barajas does not expressly teach that the at least one humanoid robot comprises a plurality of humanoid robots. Govindarajan teaches that the at least one humanoid robot comprises a plurality of humanoid robots (¶ 29; “one or more robots”). See Claim 1 above for the rationale based on obviousness, motivations and reasons to combine.
As per Claims 14 and 31, Barajas does not expressly teach that the plurality of humanoid robots are divided into at least two teams of humanoid robots. Govindarajan teaches that the plurality of humanoid robots are divided into at least two teams of humanoid robots (¶ 33; “parameter sensing robots” or “working robots”). See Claim 1 above for the rationale based on obviousness, motivations and reasons to combine.
As per Claims 15 and 32, Barajas teaches that the operation of executing the mission creator to create one or more working tasks for the at least one humanoid robot comprises: executing the mission creator to create a mission for at least one team of humanoid robots, the mission comprising a plurality of tasks (¶ 18; “to perform one or more autonomous tasks with multiple degrees of freedom (DOF)”).
As per Claims 16 and 33, Barajas does not expressly teach that the operation of executing the mission assignor to assign one or more working tasks to the at least one humanoid robot comprises: individually assigning the plurality of tasks to the humanoid robots in the at least one team of humanoid robots. Govindarajan teaches that the operation of executing the mission assignor to assign one or more working tasks to the at least one humanoid robot comprises: individually assigning the plurality of tasks to the humanoid robots in the at least one team of humanoid robots (¶ 27; “configured to coordinate other units in the system to execute the list of tasks based on the input from perception unit 104” as in Figure 1). See Claim 1 above for the rationale based on obviousness, motivations and reasons to combine.
As per Claims 17 and 34, Barajas does not expressly teach that the operations further comprise presenting a visual view of the at least one team of humanoid robots on a display device to a human operator. Govindarajan teaches that the operations further comprise presenting a visual view of the at least one team of humanoid robots on a display device to a human operator (¶¶ 37-38; on display 1106 of Figure 11). See Claim 1 above for the rationale based on obviousness, motivations and reasons to combine.
Conclusion
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ATUL TRIVEDI
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 3661
/ATUL TRIVEDI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3661
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