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 § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1-13 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. The claim(s) recite(s) commercial or legal interactions (including agreements in the form of contracts; legal obligations; advertising, marketing or sales activities or behaviors; business relations) and data processing. This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because the generically recited computer elements do not add a meaningful limitation to the abstract idea because they amount to simply implementing the abstract idea on a computer. The claim(s) does/do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because the additional limitations only store and retrieve information in memory, these are well-understood, routine, conventional computer functions as recognized by the court decisions listed in MPEP § 2106.05(d).
Re claim 1. a method for dispensing customer food orders using an array of food enclosures for receiving customer food orders from a food supply area, all of the enclosures including openings having movable doors closing the openings (commercial interactions involving sales activities such as processing orders and deliver of such orders), and a food order and array management computer system comprising at least one digital processor and a digital memory associated with the digital processor (generic computer components used to implement generic data processing functions as above), the digital memory storing programmed instructions for performing the following steps:
receiving customer food orders associated order numbers; (data gathering)
electronically displaying in the food supply area availability of enclosures so as to allow customer food orders to be supplied to empty enclosures and unavailability of enclosures which contain previously supplied customer food orders (data outputting to generic electronic display devices after data gathering), electronically displaying in the food supply area the assignment and supplying of each of the customer food orders to the enclosures (data outputting);
electronically displaying customer order information in the food supply area for all of the customer food orders while the orders are contained in the enclosures (data outputting); and
storing pick-up codes assigned to the customer orders for opening the movable doors on the respective enclosures to which the respective customer food orders have been supplied. (data gathering including data storage in database)
Re claims 2-7 are directed to data outputting using generic electronic devices.
Re claim 8 directed to generic functions on generic devices.
Re claim 9-10 is directed to data processing and outputting.
Re claim 11, similar reasoning is applied as for claim 1.
Re claim 12 is directed to data processing and outputting.
Re claim 13 is directed to data outputting.
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.
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.
Claim(s) 1-4 and 7-13 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over GOLDBERG et al. (US 10885492 B2) in view of SCUTELLARO et al. (US 7568618 B1) further in view of LEE et al. (US 20130030875 A1).
Re claim 1. GOLDBERG discloses (abstract) a method for dispensing customer food orders using an array of food enclosures for receiving customer food orders from a food supply area, all of the enclosures including openings having movable doors closing the openings, and a food order and array management computer system comprising at least one digital processor and a digital memory associated with the digital processor (FIG.1-3), the digital memory storing programmed instructions for performing the following steps:
receiving customer food orders associated order numbers; (c.9, ll.15-65)
electronically displaying in the food supply area availability of enclosures so as to allow customer food orders to be supplied to empty enclosures and unavailability of enclosures which contain previously supplied customer food orders, electronically displaying in the food supply area the assignment and supplying of each of the customer food orders to the enclosures; (c.40, ll.62 thru c.41, ll.16)
However, GOLDBERG fails to explicitly disclose:
electronically displaying customer order information in the food supply area for all of the customer food orders while the orders are contained in the enclosures.
SCUTELLARO teaches (abstract) in a similar field of invention, using an electronic display for a food supply area to illustrate availability based on customer orders data, which would provide availability of enclosures to allow food order to be supplied to empty enclosures and not try using full enclosures (c.6, ll.38-62) and displaying in the area of food preparation necessary data for delivering food orders to enclosures.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to try using electronic display functions to indicate available enclosures as suggested by SCUTELLARO in order to properly process food orders and place them in proper enclosures for customer pickup.
However, GOLDBERG and SCUTELLARO fails to explicitly disclose:
storing pick-up codes assigned to the customer orders for opening the movable doors on the respective enclosures to which the respective customer food orders have been supplied.
LEE teaches (abstract) in a similar field of invention, an ordering and pick-up system (F.1-10) using pick-up codes assigned to orders [0167] which must be implicitly stored for later use by customers picking up their orders.
[0167] An aspect of the disclosure provides location aware order handling for sites such as fast food drive-thru operations or any other site which accepts pre-ordering for later pickup, as shown in FIG. 6. A location-aware order application may run on, for example, customer's wireless device such as, e.g., a cell phone 76 or other mobile device. This application is connected to network 101 using a service to locate nearby drive-thru sites based on customer location, performed at step S60. At step S61, the application notifies (by audio alert or otherwise) the customer (while he/she is driving or otherwise moving) about the nearby stores. At step S62 the customer selects one of the nearby stores and inquires as to the menu of available items at that store. At step S63 the application informs the customer of the available items. If the customer wants to place an order, the application takes the order (using, e.g., a speech interface so as not to distract a customer who is driving) at step S64. After the application verifies the order with the customer at step S65, the application submits the order to the store at step S66 and obtains a code for pick up. The application may also provide navigation instructions to the customer. The customer pulls in to the site, informs the site of the code (by e.g., showing the ticket on the cell phone screen), and picks up the order. This solution automates the order taking and payment steps. The payment may be taken by the site when the customer arrives, or may be done electronically by cell phone 76.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to try storing the pick-up code in order to properly process pick-up codes when they are supplied by the customer during pick-up.
Re claim 2. However, GOLDBERG fails to explicitly disclose:
2. The method of claim 1 further comprising electronically displaying in the food supply area customer order information including a customer name associated with each of the customer food orders while the orders are contained within the enclosures.
SCUTELLARO further teaches (c.2, ll.51-55) using a customer name associated with
food orders.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to try using a customer name along with food orders as taught by SCUTELLARO in order to properly identify an order.
Re claim 3. However, GOLDBERG fails to explicitly disclose:
3. The method of claim 1 further comprising electronically displaying in the food supply area customer order information including the pick-up codes associated with each of the customer food orders while the orders are contained within the enclosures.
SCUTELLARO further teaches (c.2, ll.51-55) using pick-up codes associated with
food orders.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to try using pick-up codes with food orders as taught by SCUTELLARO in order to properly allow an order to be picked up.
Re claim 4. However, GOLDBERG fails to explicitly disclose:
4. The method of claim 1 further comprising electronically displaying in the food supply area customer order information including the time of delivering each of the customer food orders while the orders are contained within the enclosures.
SCUTELLARO further teaches (c.4, II.6-17) providing an estimated time of order delivery for food orders.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to try using an estimated time of delivery as taught by SCUTELLARO in order to provide updated information to customers.
Re claim 7. However, GOLDBERG fails to explicitly disclose:
7. The method of claim 1 further comprising electronically displaying in the food supply area a queue of customer food orders to be delivered to the enclosures.
SCUTELLARO further teaches (FIG.1) displaying in the food supply area a queue of customer food orders.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to display in the food supply area a queue of customer food orders as taught by SCUTELLARO in order to provide updated information to customers so that customers can determine what orders are being delivered.
Re claim 8. GOLDBERG discloses (claim 12) the method of claim 1 wherein the movable doors of the enclosures comprise touch screens and the doors are locked while customer food orders are contained within the enclosures area and are unlocked when the assigned pick-up codes corresponding to customer food orders are entered on the touch screens. (c.17, ll.46 thru c.18, ll.20) (c.17, ll.46 thru c.18, ll.20)
Re claim 9. However, GOLDBERG and SCUTELLARO and LEE fails to explicitly disclose:
9. The method of claim 8 wherein names of the customers are displayed on the touch screens of the movable doors of the enclosures containing the respective customer food orders.
Official notice is taken that displaying customer names would be a common solution to providing order information for customers picking up food orders, or any order for that matter (i.e. commonly pick-up orders display customer names on bags).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to try displaying customer names in order to prevent confusion between orders and help sort out which order belongs to who.
Re claim 10. However, GOLDBERG and SCUTELLARO fails to explicitly disclose:
10. The method of claim 9 wherein each of the customer orders receive different order numbers and the stored pick-up codes are generated from the different order numbers.
LEE clearly suggests using different pick-up codes [0167] for different orders. One of ordinary skill in the art would understand that pick-up codes would need to be generated different from order numbers so there is no overlap or confusion between orders.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to try using different pick-up codes and order numbers in order to prevent confusion between orders.
11. As applied for claim 1, a method for retrieving customer food orders from a food order and delivery system comprising an array of food enclosures receiving customer food orders from a food supply area, each of the enclosures including an opening having a movable door comprising a touch screen closing the opening so as to prevent access to food orders delivered to the enclosures from an order retrieval area when the door on each of the enclosures in locked, and a food order and array management computer system comprising at least one digital processor and a digital memory associated with the digital processor, the digital memory storing programmed instructions for receiving and storing customer food orders, storing customer names associated with the customer food orders, and storing pick-up codes for the customer food orders, the method comprising: electronically displaying in the order retrieval area the customer names and identification of the enclosures containing each customer order for each of the displayed customer names; and receiving pick-up codes for the customer food orders entered on the touch screen of each of the moveable doors of the enclosures to unlock the moveable doors so as provide access to customer orders contained within the enclosures.
12. As for claim 1 and 10, the method of claim 11 further comprising assigning order numbers to each of the customer food orders and generating the assigned pick-up codes from the assigned order numbers of the customer food orders.
Re claim 13. However, GOLDBERG and SCUTELLARO and LEE fails to explicitly disclose:
13. the method of claim 11 wherein the customer names are electronically displayed on the touch screens of the enclosures so as to identify the enclosure containing each customer order before the pick-up codes are entered on the touch screens.
One of ordinary skill in the art understands that displaying on touch screens a customer name before the entry of pick-up code is a design choice, based on preference for information provided to customers.
The rationale is as follows:
It would have been an obvious matter of design choice to display customer names to identify enclosure containing corresponding order before a pick-up code is entered since the applicant has not disclosed that displaying customer name before pick-up code being entered solves any stated problem or is for any particular purpose and it appears that the invention would perform equally well with displaying any other identifying information for order such as order number before the entry of pick-up code on a touch screen. (see In re Rose, 105 USPQ 237 (CCPA 1955) and In Gardner v. TEC Systems, Inc., 725 F.2d 1338, 220 USPQ 777 (Fed. Cir. 1984), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 830, 225 USPQ 232 (1984))
Claim(s) 5-6 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over GOLDBERG et al. (US 10885492 B2) in view of SCUTELLARO et al. (US 7568618 B1) further in view of LEE et al. (US 20130030875 A1) and further in view of BERLIN (US 20160342972 A1).
Re claim 5. However, GOLDBERG as modified by SCUTELLARO and LEE fails to explicitly disclose:
5. The method of claim 1 further comprising electronically displaying in the food supply area customer order information including specified pick-up times for the respective customer food orders while the orders are contained within the enclosures.
BERLIN teaches (abstract) in a similar field of invention, wherein a safe food ordering process is described to include a customer selecting a pick-up time for their order while they are busy driving for instance, for the purpose of providing customer customizable options for their order.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to allow customer to specify a pick-up time as desired as taught by HARMAN in order to assist a customer to pick-up food order during an appropriate time for customer.
Re claim 6. However, GOLDBERG as modified by SCUTELLARO and LEE and BERLIN fails to explicitly disclose:
6. The method of claim 5 further comprising electronically displaying in the food supply area respective customer order information including an alert that the difference between the specified pick-up time and the actual time has exceeded a predetermined limit.
Official notice is taken that alerts to notify that specified pick-up times have expired, such as when a pick-up actual time exceeds a predetermined limit (i.e. orders are returned or refunded after a set time limit).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to try using a predetermined time limit in order to prevent older/unpicked up orders from rotting or blocking newer orders for new customers for being picked up due to limited space available.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CARLOS E GARCIA whose telephone number is (571)270-1354. The examiner can normally be reached M-Th 9-6pm F 9-5pm.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Brian Zimmerman can be reached at (571) 272-3059. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
CARLOS E. GARCIA
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2686
/Carlos Garcia/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2686 8/14/2026
Prosecution Insights