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 .
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election of Invention I, claims 1-10 is acknowledged. Election was made without traverse in the reply filed 24 August 2026. Claims 11-20 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a non-elected invention.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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, 3-5, and 9-10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by US Pub No. 2021/0372035 CHAE et al.
To claim 1, CHAE discloses a method of determining a presence of unacceptable folding conditions in a folded laundry article (C) (see Figures 16-25; paras. 0011-0064, 0292-0307), following the use of an autonomous folding device (1) (see Figures 1-15; paras. 0088-0291) to fold said laundry article,
wherein one or more sensors (SC,SL) are provided which are configured to output a signal indicative of a folding state of the laundry article (paras. 0184-0190; for example, sensor SC1 outputs a signal indicative of a “lumping” folded state of laundry article C),
and wherein the method comprises: determining, based on at least one of the one or more sensor signals and a user input (paras. 0101, 0295), whether a folded laundry article comprises one or more unacceptable folding conditions (paras. 0011-0017, 0293-0307; unacceptable folding condition of “lumping”).
To claim 3, CHAE further discloses a method wherein the user input comprises at least one of a screen button tap or toggle button selection on a user interface screen of an application running on a remote device (para. 0152).
To claim 4, CHAE further discloses a method wherein the remote device comprises at least one of a tablet, smartphone, smart watch, and a remote computing device (para. 0152).
To claim 5, CHAE further discloses a method wherein a controller (400) is provided that utilizes a neural network to determine whether the laundry article is acceptably folded or comprises one or more unacceptable folding conditions (see Figures 16-25; paras. 0292-0307).
To claim 9, CHAE further discloses a method wherein the laundry article is spread apart and/or partially folded by an autonomous spreading station (100) adjacent the autonomous folding device (see Figures 4A-4C and 6-8; paras. 0103-0108).
To claim 10, CHAE further discloses a method wherein the one or more sensors comprise at least one of a 3-D camera, an IR sensor, a 2-D camera, LIDAR, LADAR, a sonar proximity sensor, an ultrasonic ranging sensor, a radar sensor, and a pair of stereo depth cameras (paras. 0174, 0189 IR sensor).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2 and 6-8 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.
Conclusion
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/F Griffin Hall/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3732
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