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 Objection
Claim 4: remove one “is”.
Claim 10: replace “lest” with –least--
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 1-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea (mathematical calculations) without significantly more. The independent claims 1 and 11 recite a system and related method for managing food inventory using a food rotation and labeling system, the method comprising: generating, by an alert station, a label having a unique identifier and printing the label using a label maker; affixing the label to a food container; storing, in a database of the alert station, food data associated with the unique identifier, including a preparation date and an expiration date; operating the alert station to monitor the food data and automatically update a status of the food container; and operating the alert station to generate an alert when the food container is approaching expiration or has expired, the alert being displayed on the alert station and transmitted to a mobile device. The limitations (i.e. generating, affixing, storing, operatings), as drafted, is a process that, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of the limitation in the mind but for the recitation of generic computer components.
The alert station, label marker, and database are recited so generically that they represent no more than mere instructions to apply the judicial exception on a computer. These limitations can also be viewed as nothing more than an attempt to generally link the use of the judicial exception to the technological environment of a computer. It should be noted that because the courts have made it clear that mere physicality or tangibility of an additional element or elements is not a relevant consideration in the eligibility analysis, the physical nature of these computer components does not affect this analysis. See MPEP 2106.05(I) for more information on this point, including explanations from judicial decisions including Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int'l, 573 U.S. 208, 224-26 (2014). The station and database represent a mere data gathering process using insignificant extra-solution activities of a display and label maker, which are deemed to be abstract processes. Moreover, additional activities including monitoring the food data to generate an alert are also directed to well-known concept of collection and analyzing data to detect outdated or spoiled food. See Electric Power Group, 830 F.3d 1350, 1354 (Fed. Cir. 2016); Secured Mail (FC 2017); Return Mail (FC 2017); and Fairwarning (FC 2016). Note that in Secured Mail, as similar to the current application, the claim limitation involving a barcode label being generated and affixed to a mail object was held to be conventional. In Fairwarning, claims directed to providing a notification if a monitored event of improper access or identity theft occurs, which is similar to the monitoring process of food data to provide an expiration alert.
The claims as a whole do not amount to significantly more than the recited exception. The recitation of generic components (i.e. station, label maker, database) are at best the equivalent of merely adding the words “apply it” to the judicial exception. Mere instructions to apply an exception cannot provide an inventive concept. Mere instructions to apply an exception on a generic computer cannot integrate a judicial exception into a practical application.
For these reasons, there is no inventive concept in the claim, and thus it is ineligible.
Dependent claims 2-10, 12-16 recite elements that are well-known in the art (i.e. human readable form, GUI, supervisor, network, cloud-base server, allergen, manual verification, …) and provide no significantly more solution to the concept of data collection and analysis of independent claims. Therefore, they are also ineligible.
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.
Claim(s) 17-19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102a1 as being anticipated by Kennamer (US 20050261991)
Kennamer discloses
17. A food container comprising:
a body (50) configured to store food; and
a label (52) affixed to the body, the label including a unique identifier corresponding to a record stored in a database of an alert station, the record including at least a preparation date and an expiration date of the food (Fig. 5-9).
18.7, wherein the label further comprises at least one of a barcode and a QR code encoding the unique identifier (par. 49).
19.17, wherein the label is at least one of water-resistant, freezer-safe, and dissolvable (par. 47).
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.
Claim(s) 1-9, 11-16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Taylor (US 20190287037) in view of Kennamer (US 20050261991)
Taylor discloses
1. A food rotation and labeling system comprising:
a label maker (122) configured to print a label including a unique identifier for a food container (Fig. 1, par. 16);
an alert station (102, 400) operatively coupled to the label maker, the alert station comprising:
a processor, a memory, and a display screen (414);
the processor configured to store the unique identifier and associated food data including at least a preparation date and an expiration date in the memory (Fig. 4, par. 15, 40: databases 428 for storing information associated sensor reading and perishable item stock levels. The databases 428 may be updated manually or automatically at any suitable time to add, delete, and/or update one or more data items in the databases);
the processor configured to generate a graphical user interface (GUI) displayed on the display screen and configured to present the food data and status of each food container; and
the processor configured to display an alert on the display screen and transmit the alert to a mobile device when a food container is approaching expiration or has expired (Fig. 1-4, par. 10, 24, 39: stock inventory processing device includes an auditory alert when transmitting an indication to the mobile inventory processing device; the stock inventory processing device user can interact with station 400 via display 414 for displaying GUI 416; perishable items have short life and will spoil; Taylor is silent to the display 414 display an alert when a food container is approaching expiration or has expired;
Kennamer discloses [0050] It should be noted that each time a product rotation label is scanned, the computer 24 is always checking the expiration date to determined whether it has expired. If it does detect an expired expiration date, an alert is issued to the user via the computer 24 and/or the data collector 22. Further, the expired food item will be highlighted or otherwise identified on any screen displaying the food item. Further, the user at any time can create a listing of all food items that are about to, or have, expired.
it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective date the invention was made to incorporate the teachings of Kennamer so that a single or multiple employees using the computer and mobile device can be aware of the expiration information thereby minimize health risks for consumers.
2.1, wherein the label includes human-readable information comprising at least a preparation date and the expiration date (Kennamer, par. 35, 41, 49-50).
3.1, wherein the GUI includes icons indicating food items that are fresh, expiring soon, or expired, each icon displaying a count of the corresponding food items (Kennamer, par. 50).
4.1, wherein the processor is is further configured to escalate the alert to a supervisor if the alert is not acknowledged within a predefined time period (although silent to a supervisor, this feature is considered obvious extension of the prior art’s teachings the users and persons described in the prior art are employees, the teachings expressly the desire to alert the people with expiration information).
5.1, wherein the alert station further comprises a network communication module configured to synchronize the food data with a cloud-based server (Taylor, par. 42).
6.1, wherein the label maker is configured to print at least one of water-resistant, freezer-safe, and dissolvable labels (Kennamer, i.e. par. 47).
7.1, wherein the GUI is configured to receive a manual user input corresponding to the unique identifier of the label to update a status of the food container in the food data (Taylor, Fig. 4, par. 39-40; Kennamer, par. 43, 47, 51).
8.1, wherein the processor is further configured to generate a printed list of food containers and their respective identifiers (Kennamer, par. 50: computer and user can generate a listing of food items as a digital copy; it would have been an obvious extension to generate a hard copy using a printer).
9.8, wherein the printed list further comprises fields for manual verification of each food container by comparing the unique identifier on the label to the identifier on the printed list (see discussion regarding claim 8 above; it would have also been obvious that the list can be used to find and confirm items “about to, or have, expired” for further actions including quick sale or discard)
11. A method of managing food inventory using a food rotation and labeling system, the method comprising:
generating, by an alert station (102, 400)s, a label having a unique identifier and printing the label using a label maker (122);
affixing the label to a food container;
storing, in a database of the alert station, food data associated with the unique identifier (Fig. 4, par. 15, 40: databases 428 for storing information associated sensor reading and perishable item stock levels. The databases 428 may be updated manually or automatically at any suitable time to add, delete, and/or update one or more data items in the databases),
Taylor is silent to the database including a preparation date and an expiration date;
operating the alert station to monitor the food data and automatically update a status of the food container; and
operating the alert station to generate an alert when the food container is approaching expiration or has expired, the alert being displayed on the alert station and transmitted to a mobile device.
Kennamer discloses [0038] Next, upon a prompt from the computer 24, the user uses the probe 30 to measure the temperature of the food package 50, and that temperature value is transferred to the central computer 24 via the remote transceiver 42, base transceiver 41 a and ethernet hub 43. The central computer 24 stores the measured temperature value along with a time and date stamp and the food item location in a table such as that shown in FIG. 6. The table of FIG. 6 also contains ranges of acceptable temperature values that are dependent on the location at which the temperature measurement was taken. That temperature range information is obtained from a table of locations and acceptable ranges of temperature at those locations which has been programmed by the user and store in the computer 24. [0050] It should be noted that each time a product rotation label is scanned, the computer 24 is always checking the expiration date to determined whether it has expired. If it does detect an expired expiration date, an alert is issued to the user via the computer 24 and/or the data collector 22. Further, the expired food item will be highlighted or otherwise identified on any screen displaying the food item. Further, the user at any time can create a listing of all food items that are about to, or have, expired.
it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective date the invention was made to incorporate the teachings of Kennamer so that a single or multiple employees using the computer and mobile device can be aware of the expiration information thereby minimize health risks for consumers.
Re claims 12-15, see discussion regarding claims above.
16.11, further comprising recording a history of actions associated with each food container, including label generation, storage, and disposal (Taylor/Kennamer is silent to the history including disposal; however, Kennamer also mentions that the method permits food rotation to be optimized, so that ingredients with the oldest expiration dates can be accurately and quickly found and spoilage of food in inventory can be eliminated, par. 14; thus, it would have also been obvious to extend the prior art teachings by adding a discard date)
Claim(s) 10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Taylor (US 20190287037) Kennamer (US 20050261991) in view of Yoshida (US 20030213844 )
Re claim 10.1, Taylor is silent to wherein the GUI further comprises a notes field configured to associate at lest one of handling instructions and allergen information with the food container.
Yoshida discloses [0099] FIG. 9 is a flowchart that shows processing procedure of the PC 27 based on the allergy determination software 26. First, the PC 27 displays "Allergy Check (entry screen)" as shown in FIG. 10A, acquires the allergic constitution to be checked specified by an operator (Step S30), and then, scans off the product code 30 marked on the product by the operator's operation using the code reader 28 (Step S31).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective date the invention was made to incorporate the teachings of Yoshida by incorporating the program and database so that the consumers can be further protected from allergy attacks.
Claim(s) 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kennamer (US 20050261991) in view of Haarer (US 20110084128)
Re claim 20.17, Kennamer is silent to wherein the label further comprises a color-coded indicator corresponding to a freshness status of the food.
Haarer discloses such feature is well known in the art (see par. 17-18, 25-26, 36, 39)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective date the invention was made to incorporate the teachings of Haarer for easy visual inspection and verification of the state of freshness.
Conclusion
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/THIEN T MAI/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2876
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