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 .
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.
Joint Inventors
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Effective Filing Date
The instant application is a continuation (CON) of US application 18/904925, now U.S. Patent No. 12,384,026 B1, which claimed domestic benefit to provisional US application 63/551,215. That provisional application was filed February 8th, 2024, and provides sufficient written description support for the instant application’s current claim set. As such, the effective filing date for the instant application’s current claim set is that filing date of the provisional application, February 8th, 2024.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on July 8th, 2025 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Double Patenting
Claims 1-20 of this application are patentably indistinct from claims 1-17 of Application No. 18/904,925, corresponding to U.S. Patent No. 12,384,026 B1. Pursuant to 37 CFR 1.78(f), when two or more applications filed by the same applicant or assignee contain patentably indistinct claims, elimination of such claims from all but one application may be required in the absence of good and sufficient reason for their retention during pendency in more than one application. Applicant is required to either cancel the patentably indistinct claims from all but one application or maintain a clear line of demarcation between the applications. See MPEP § 822.
The nonstatutory double patenting rejection is based on a judicially created doctrine grounded in public policy (a policy reflected in the statute) so as to prevent the unjustified or improper timewise extension of the “right to exclude” granted by a patent and to prevent possible harassment by multiple assignees. A nonstatutory double patenting rejection is appropriate where the conflicting claims are not identical, but at least one examined application claim is not patentably distinct from the reference claim(s) because the examined application claim is either anticipated by, or would have been obvious over, the reference claim(s). See, e.g., In re Berg, 140 F.3d 1428, 46 USPQ2d 1226 (Fed. Cir. 1998); In re Goodman, 11 F.3d 1046, 29 USPQ2d 2010 (Fed. Cir. 1993); In re Longi, 759 F.2d 887, 225 USPQ 645 (Fed. Cir. 1985); In re Van Ornum, 686 F.2d 937, 214 USPQ 761 (CCPA 1982); In re Vogel, 422 F.2d 438, 164 USPQ 619 (CCPA 1970); In re Thorington, 418 F.2d 528, 163 USPQ 644 (CCPA 1969).
A timely filed terminal disclaimer in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(c) or 1.321(d) may be used to overcome an actual or provisional rejection based on nonstatutory double patenting provided the reference application or patent either is shown to be commonly owned with the examined application, or claims an invention made as a result of activities undertaken within the scope of a joint research agreement. See MPEP § 717.02 for applications subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA as explained in MPEP § 2159. See MPEP § 2146 et seq. for applications not subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . A terminal disclaimer must be signed in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(b).
The filing of a terminal disclaimer by itself is not a complete reply to a nonstatutory double patenting (NSDP) rejection. A complete reply requires that the terminal disclaimer be accompanied by a reply requesting reconsideration of the prior Office action. Even where the NSDP rejection is provisional the reply must be complete. See MPEP § 804, subsection I.B.1. For a reply to a non-final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.111(a). For a reply to final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.113(c). A request for reconsideration while not provided for in 37 CFR 1.113(c) may be filed after final for consideration. See MPEP §§ 706.07(e) and 714.13.
The USPTO Internet website contains terminal disclaimer forms which may be used. Please visit www.uspto.gov/patent/patents-forms. The actual filing date of the application in which the form is filed determines what form (e.g., PTO/SB/25, PTO/SB/26, PTO/AIA /25, or PTO/AIA /26) should be used. A web-based eTerminal Disclaimer may be filled out completely online using web-screens. An eTerminal Disclaimer that meets all requirements is auto-processed and approved immediately upon submission. For more information about eTerminal Disclaimers, refer to www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/applying-online/eterminal-disclaimer.
Claims 1-20 are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over Claims 1-17 of U.S. Patent No. 12,384,026 B1.
Regarding Claims 1-8, the claims contain the same subject matter verbatim as claims 1-7, respectively, of U.S. Patent No. 12,384,026 B1. Although the claims at issue are not entirely identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because the only distinguishing portion(s) of these claims is the removal of certain narrowing limitations, resulting in the exact same claim but just slightly broader in scope.
Claim 1 of the instant application simply removes some functionality comprised in “the selected crop management tool”.
Claim 2 of the instant application simply removes a parameter for accessing the list datastore.
Claims 3-4 of the instant application both simply remove a parameter for “generating a tool selection request” when the “crop manager […] does not receive […] the tool selection reply message”.
Claim 5 of the instant application simply removes the last limitation of “to store in the selection library datastore […]” and separates this limitation as an additional dependent claim, which is now claim 6 of the instant application.
Claims 7-8 of the instant application are the exact same claim in subject matter and scope as claims 6-7 of U.S. Patent No. 12,384,026 B1.
Besides what has been stated above, every limitation in claims 1-8 of the instant application are exactly the same as claims 1-7 of U.S. Patent No. 12,384,026 B1.
Regarding Claims 9 and 11-14, the claims are exactly the same as claims 8 and 10-13, respectively, of U.S. Patent No. 12,384,026 B1.
Regarding Claim 10, the claim contains the same subject matter verbatim as the last limitation of claim 9 of U.S. Patent No. 12,384,026 B1.
Regarding Claim 15, the claim contains the same subject matter verbatim as the last limitation of claim 14 of U.S. Patent No. 12,384,026 B1.
Regarding Claims 16-18, the claims are exactly the same as claims 15-17, respectively, of U.S. Patent No. 12,384,026 B1.
Regarding Claims 19-20, these claims are not patentably distinct from claim 1 of U.S. Patent No. 12,384,026 B1. Although the claims at issue are not entirely identical, the only distinguishing component of these claims are that they fall under a different statutory category. However, the subject matter, scope, and even verbatim language within these claims of the instant application are the same as the limitations in claim 1 of U.S. Patent No. 12,384,026 B1, and describe a method for the exact same invention.
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 2, 6-8, 10, 12-13, and 15-16 (along with Claims 17-18 due to dependency) are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as failing to set forth 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.
The terms “similar” in claims 2, 6-8 and 15-16, and “proximal” in claims 10 and 12-13 are relative subjective terms which render these claims indefinite. The terms “similar” and “proximal” are not defined by the claim, the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite degree, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 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 1 and 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being obvious over Marsonia et al. (CA Patent Pub. No. 3 111 952 A1), herein “Marsonia”, in view of Rohanimanesh et al. (US Patent Pub. No. 2023/0081119 A1), herein “Rohanimanesh”.
Regarding Claim 1, Marsonia discloses a robotic mushroom crop manager (See 008, “[….] mushroom harvesting vision system comprising […] a processor for running an algorithm in a computer-operated algorithm […] and a detection module for detecting coordinates of at least one mushroom […] and a robot comprising a gripper arm […]”) comprising:
at least one processor (See 008 as referenced above);
at least one computer-readable medium storing instructions executable by the at least one processor to cause the robotic mushroom crop manager (See 011, “[…] computer-operated subsystem 16 includes an input module 18 […]”):
to periodically or continuously receive mushroom bed data corresponding to a mushroom bed including growing mushrooms at a plurality of times (See 005, “[…] system for harvesting mushrooms from a bed, the system comprising: (a) one or more mushroom harvesters […] one or more cameras for locating mushrooms in the bed […] control apparatus is configured to receive image data from the one or more cameras […]”);
to use a trained mushroom bed model to process the mushroom bed data to generate mushroom bed state vectors respectively characterizing corresponding states of the mushroom bed at the plurality of times (See 011, “[…] computer operated algorithm 16 includes a preprocessing module 22 for preprocessing each image […] and a detection module 24 for detecting coordinates of at least one mushroom. The detection module 24 includes an image processor in which each image is processed to produce at least one image output matrix. Each row of each image output matrix comprises x, y, z coordinates of one of said at least one mushroom, a corresponding gripper orientation, and a corresponding mushroom orientation.” Examiner notes mushroom bed state vectors as defined in the specification are encoded properties and characteristics of the mushroom bed (See 0031 of the specification), which includes matrix representation of mushroom locations and their orientation);
But Marsonia does not explicitly disclose a robotic mushroom crop manager comprising:
a communications interface; and
to control crop management equipment to perform a crop management program comprising a sequence of actions to be performed by the crop management equipment comprising, for each current action in the sequence of actions, selecting, based on corresponding a current mushroom bed state vector, a selected crop management tool from a plurality of crop management tools; and
to control the crop management equipment to use the selected crop management tool to perform the current action on the mushroom bed.
However, Rohanimanesh, in a similar field of endeavor, teaches a robotic mushroom crop manager comprising:
a communications interface (See 0087, “[…] executing computer programs implementing the methods described […] may be used in conjunction with any […] display monitor, or other raster output device capable of producing color or gray scale pixels on paper, film, display screen, or other output medium.”); and
to control crop management equipment to perform a crop management program comprising a sequence of actions to be performed by the crop management equipment comprising, for each current action in the sequence of actions, selecting, based on corresponding a current mushroom bed state vector, a selected crop management tool from a plurality of crop management tools (See 0071, “[…] computer program instructions […] to perform a method, the method including: (A) identifying an end-effector currently attached to a robot; (B) identifying, based on an input image, a plurality of objects to be grasped by the robot; (C) selecting, using a Markov Decision Process (MDP) based on the plurality of grasp prediction models, a plurality of grasps for grasping the plurality of objects, wherein the plurality of grasps are in an ordered sequence; and (D) selecting, for each of the plurality of grasps, a corresponding end-effector.” Examiner notes the method sequence disclosed is the same as the sequence of actions to be performed by the crop management equipment, and the selected end-effector is determined based on a corresponding object that most closely matches the functionality of the end-effector); and
to control the crop management equipment to use the selected crop management tool to perform the current action on the mushroom bed (See 0071 as referenced above. See also 0016, “[…] automatically choose the order of grasps to perform […] and the corresponding tool-change actions […]” Examiner notes the sequence of actions described in the disclosed method includes performance of the associated end-effector once the appropriate selection has been made for the corresponding object).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention, with a reasonable expectation of success, to include, with the robotic mushroom crop manager capable of receiving and processing data regarding a mushroom bed to determine which target(s) to operate on as disclosed by Marsonia, the ability to control which equipment is utilized based on the received and processed data, as taught by Rohanimanesh, since the robotic mushroom crop manager already obtains the necessary data and performs appropriate calculations to determine the state of a target, and also includes a pre-processing stage using various models to determine a corresponding position of the end-effector, thus allowing a simple inclusion of a plurality of end-effectors, either with differing functions or operational parameters, to be selected instead. This loosens the conditions for the crop manager to be able to select an appropriate tool, since the range of crops able to be operated on will increase drastically with a larger pool of end-effector types and sizes.
Regarding Claim 19, Marsonia further discloses a method performed by at least one processor of a robotic mushroom crop manager, the method comprising:
periodically or continuously receiving mushroom bed data corresponding to a mushroom bed including growing mushrooms at a plurality of times (See 005 as referenced above); and
using a trained mushroom bed model to process the mushroom bed data to generate mushroom bed state vectors respectively characterizing corresponding states of the mushroom bed at the plurality of times (See 011 as referenced above).
But does not explicitly disclose the robotic mushroom crop manager comprising a communications interface;
controlling crop management equipment to perform a crop management program comprising a sequence of actions to be performed by crop management equipment comprising, for each current action in the sequence of actions:
selecting, based on corresponding a current mushroom bed state vector, a selected crop management tool from a plurality of crop management tools; and
controlling the crop management equipment to use the selected crop management tool to perform the current action on the mushroom bed.
Rohanimanesh, in a similar field of endeavor, teaches the robotic mushroom crop manager comprising a communications interface (See 0087 as referenced above);
controlling crop management equipment to perform a crop management program comprising a sequence of actions to be performed by crop management equipment comprising, for each current action in the sequence of actions (See 0071 as referenced above):
selecting, based on corresponding a current mushroom bed state vector, a selected crop management tool from a plurality of crop management tools (See 0071 as referenced above. Examiner notes the selected end-effector is determined based on a corresponding object that most closely matches the functionality of the end-effector, given a combination of parameters including the mushroom location and orientation, which is the same as its state vector as defined in the specification); and
controlling the crop management equipment to use the selected crop management tool to perform the current action on the mushroom bed (See 0016 and 0071 as referenced above).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention, with a reasonable expectation for success, to include, with the method performed by a robotic mushroom crop manager capable of receiving and processing data regarding a mushroom bed to determine which target(s) to operate on as disclosed by Marsonia, the ability to perform the sequence of actions to control which equipment is utilized based on the received and processed data, as taught by Rohanimanesh, since the robotic mushroom crop manager already obtains the necessary data using similar imaging sensors and performs appropriate calculations to determine the state of a target, and also includes pre-processing of the image data using various models to determine a corresponding position of the end-effector, thus allowing a simple inclusion of a plurality of end-effectors, either with differing functions or operational parameters, to be selected instead. This loosens the conditions for the crop manager to be able to select an appropriate tool, since the range of crops able to be operated on will increase drastically with a larger pool of end-effector types and sizes.
Regarding Claim 20, Marsonia further discloses a computer-readable medium storing instructions executable by the at least one processor to perform the method of claim 19 (See 011 as referenced above).
Claim 14 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Marsonia et al. (CA Patent Pub. No. 3 111 952 A1) in view of Rohanimanesh et al. (US Patent Pub. No. 2023/0081119 A1) as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Rapila et al. (US Patent Pub. No. 2009/0320430 A1), herein “Rapila”.
Regarding Claim 14, Marsonia in view of Rohanimanesh does not explicitly teach the robotic mushroom crop manager of claim 1, wherein:
at least some of the crop management tools comprise suction harvesters operable to apply suction to respective heads of at least some of the mushrooms to lift the mushrooms during harvesting.
Rapila, in a similar field of endeavor, teaches at least some of the crop management tools comprise suction harvesters operable to apply suction to respective heads of at least some of the mushrooms to lift the mushrooms during harvesting (See Abstract, “[…] apparatus for picking mushrooms including a carriage, at least one picking head arranged to move back and forth horizontally, and a suction pad apparatus configured to grip mushrooms for picking”).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention, with a reasonable expectation for success, to further include, with the robotic mushroom crop manager capable of receiving and processing data regarding a mushroom bed to determine an operable target and corresponding end-effector as taught by the combination of Marsonia in view of Rohanimanesh, at least one of the available end-effectors to include a suction harvester, as taught by Rapila, since this is a common tool for mushroom harvesting and allows for optimal lifting of the mushroom(s) in varying physical conditions.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Bryant Tang whose telephone number is (571)270-0145. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8-5 CST.
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/BRYANT TANG/Examiner, Art Unit 3658
/THOMAS E WORDEN/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3658
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