Ex Parte Nagasaka

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Jul 19, 2012

10822199 (B.P.A.I. Jul. 19, 2012)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
United States Patent and Trademark Office
Address: COMMISSIONER FOR PATENTS
P.O. Box 1450
Alexandria, Virginia 22313-1450
www.uspto.gov
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
10/822,199 04/09/2004 Kenichiro Nagasaka 450100-05018 2299
7590 07/19/2012
FROMMER LAWRENCE & HAUG LLP
745 FIFTH AVENUE
NEW YORK, NY 10151
EXAMINER
JEN, MINGJEN
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3664
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
07/19/2012 PAPER
Please find below and/or attached an Office communication concerning this application or proceeding.
The time period for reply, if any, is set in the attached communication.
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________

Ex parte KENICHIRO NAGASAKA
___________

Appeal 2009-013676
Application 10/822,199
Technology Center 3600
____________

Before: NEAL E. ABRAMS, KEN B. BARRETT, and EDWARD A.
BROWN, Administrative Patent Judges.

ABRAMS, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Kenichiro Nagasaka (Appellant) seeks our review under 35 U.S.C.
§ 134 of the final rejection of claims 1-12, which are all the claims of record
in the application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).

We AFFIRM-IN-PART.
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THE INVENTION
The claimed invention is directed to a robot movement control
system.
Claims 1 and 7, reproduced below, are illustrative of the subject
matter on appeal.
1. A movement control system for a robot having a base and a
plurality of movable regions connected to the base, the system
comprising:
fundamental constraint-condition setters for setting movement
constraint-conditions, which are imposed in accordance with a task
and a movement state applied to the robot, for each kind of constraint;
a constraint-condition setting unit for imposing the movement
constraint conditions of the entire robot necessary for a state variation
of the robot by selectively using the appropriate fundamental
constraint-condition setter in accordance with a movement-constraint
requirement produced during execution of a task and a movement of
the robot; and
a drive-amount determining unit for determining a drive
amount of each of the movable regions so as to satisfy the entire
movement-constraint conditions set by the constraint-condition setting
unit,
wherein movement constraint-conditions comprises conditions
corresponding to constraints regarding to an original point position of
a link, a link posture, a gravity center position of a link, a joint angle,
a gravity center position of the robot, or an entire angular momentum.

7. A movement control system for a robot having a base and a
plurality of movable regions connected to the base, the system
comprising:
fundamental redundancy drive-method setters for setting
redundancy drive-methods, which are changed in accordance with a
task and a movement state applied to the robot, for each kind of norm;
a redundancy drive-method setting unit for setting redundancy
drive-methods of the entire robot by selectively using the appropriate
fundamental redundancy drive-method setter in accordance with a
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requirement for changes generated during execution of a task and a
movement of the robot; and
a drive-amount determining unit for determining a drive
amount of each of the movable regions so as to satisfy the redundancy
drive-method set by the redundancy drive-method setting unit,
wherein the redundancy drive-method is set to minimize system
state changes and target state deviation.

THE PRIOR ART
The Examiner relies upon the following as evidence of
unpatentability:
Seraji US 5,294,873 Mar. 15, 1994
Watanabe US 6,853,881 B2 Feb. 8, 2005

THE REJECTIONS
The following Examiner’s rejections are before us for review:
Claims 1, 2, 4-9, 11 and 12 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as
anticipated by Seraji.
Claims 3 and 10 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Seraji in view of Watanabe.

OPINION
The Rejection of Claims 1, 2, 4-9, 11 and 12
as Anticipated by Seraji
In the course of arriving at the conclusion that claim 1 is anticipated
by Seraji, the Examiner has taken the position that all six “movement
constraint-conditions” recited in the claim are disclosed therein. Ans. 3-4.
The Appellant’s only argument in rebuttal to the rejection of claim 1 is that
Seraji fails to disclose all of the recited constraint-conditions and therefore
cannot be anticipatory of the subject matter recited in the claim. App. Br. 9-
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11; Reply Br. 9-11. The Examiner has responded by pointing out that claim
1 sets forth the several claimed constraint-conditions as being alternatives,
and therefore Seraji need disclose only one of them. Ans. 12.
Claim 1 is directed to a movement control system for a robot having a
base and a plurality of movable regions connected to the base. According to
claim 1, the system comprises, inter alia, fundamental constraint-condition
setters for setting movement constraint-conditions, and then goes on to recite
these movement constraint-conditions as “corresponding to constraints
regarding to an original point position of a link, a link posture, a gravity
center position of a link, a joint angle, a gravity center position of the robot,
or an entire angular momentum.” The Examiner has explained why all six
constraint-conditions are present in Seraji. Ans. 3-4. However, the
Appellant has responded with specific arguments regarding only three of the
six (Reply Br. 11; App. Br. 10-11), concluding that claim 1 requires that the
fundamental constraint-condition setters set “all” of the constraint conditions
and thus requires each of them to be pre-set into the system, which means
that for Seraji to be effective as a reference it is “required to disclose or
suggest each of the above-identified constraint conditions.” Reply Br. 13.
In the last paragraph, claim 1 lists six movement-constraint
conditions. However, we agree with the Examiner that the use of the
conjunction “or” between the last two conditions listed in line 15 of the
claim establishes that all six conditions are alternatives to one another.
Thus, by its very language the claim does not support the Appellant’s
argument that the presence of all six of the conditions listed is required in
Seraji in order for the reference to meet the terms of the claim. Specifically,
the Appellant argues that Seraji fails to disclose the three constraint-
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conditions of “a gravity center position of a link,” “a gravity center
position of the robot,” and “an entire angular momentum,” but does not
argue that Seraji fails to disclose the three conditions of “an original point
position of a link,” “a link posture,” and “an entire angular momentum.”
Reply Br. 9-10; App. Br. 10-11. Thus, the Examiner’s position regarding
the disclosure of three of the six conditions in Seraji is uncontroverted by the
Appellant. It is our opinion that the unchallenged presence in the Seraji
patent of three of the six constraint-conditions recited in claim 1 as being
alternatives is sufficient to support the conclusion that Seraji is anticipatory
of the subject matter recited in this portion of claim 1. Since this is the only
issue raised by the Appellant with regard to the rejection of independent
claim 1, we will affirm the Examiner’s rejection thereof.
The Appellant has not separately argued the patentability of claims 2
and 4-6, which depend from claim 1, and therefore the rejection of these
claims as being anticipated by Seraji also is affirmed.
Independent claim 7 is directed to a movement control system for a
robot which comprises fundamental redundancy drive-method setters for
setting redundancy drive-methods, a redundancy drive-method setting unit
for setting redundancy drive-methods, and a drive-amount determining unit
for determining a drive amount to satisfy the redundancy drive-amount set
by the redundancy drive-method setting unit. The sole argument raised by
the Appellant with regard to the Examiner’s rejection of independent claim 7
focuses on the requirement that “the redundancy drive-method is set to
minimize system state changes and target state deviation.” Reply Br. 12.
In the statement of rejection of this limitation of claim 7, the
Examiner has merely cited to “Column 24, lines 5 – Column 26, line 30;
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Column 27, lines 1 – Column 29, lines 40,” which encompasses 174 lines of
text, 22 formulae and 21 published articles (Ans. 6), without providing any
amplification as to how this material supports the Examiner’s conclusion.
In reply to the Appellant’s argument that Seraji fails to disclose the argued
limitations, the Examiner then refers to Seraji at column 26, lines 50-55,
column 6, lines 55-60, section 2.1, and equations 13 and 89, and offers some
explanation culminating in the conclusory statements that “it is the primary
objective of Seraji to set up a redundancy drive method to set to minimize
the system state change along with target state deviation, as the invention
title states,” “to minimize the system state change along with target state
deviation is the primary principle of the feedback loop system, as shown by
Seraji, Figure 1,” and “it is the inherent purpose and primary application of
the control system shown by Seraji, to be used as to minimize target state
deviation, where the target state deviation is set at 0.” Ans. 13-15. The
Appellant responded by arguing that “the null space of Seraji does not
involve a target state. Therefore, the optimization method of Seraji does not
minimize…target state deviation, as recited in claim 7” and argues that
claim 7 is thus patentable. Reply Br. 12.
The terms “target state” and “target state deviation” do not appear in
the Seraji patent. We have carefully reviewed the explanations set forth by
the Examiner that caused the Examiner nevertheless to conclude that the
Seraji system anticipates the limitations regarding minimizing system state
changes and target state deviation, as set forth in claim 7. However, we find
those explanations not to be persuasive with regard to meeting the burden of
overcoming the Appellant’s challenge that Seraji does not disclose or teach
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these limitations and, this being the case, we will not affirm the rejection of
independent claim 7.
Since claim 8 contains the same limitations, we also will not affirm
the rejection of independent claim 8 or, it follows, of claims 9, 11 and 12,
which depend from claim 8 and were rejected on the same grounds.

The Rejection of Claims 3 and 10 as Unpatentable Over
Seraji in View of Watanabe
Claim 3 depends from claim 1, the rejection of which we have
affirmed. The Appellant has not provided arguments directed to the
patentability of claim 3 over the combined teachings of Seraji and
Watanabe. Thus, we shall affirm the rejection of claim 3 along with that of
claim 1.
The addition of Watanabe to Seraji does not overcome the
deficiencies we have noted above with regard to the application of the latter
reference to claim 8, from which claim 10 depends. This being the case, we
also reverse the rejection of claim 10.

DECISION
The Examiner’s rejection of claims 1, 2 and 4-6 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 102(b) as anticipated by Seraji is affirmed.
The Examiner’s rejection of claims 7, 8, 9, 11 and 12 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 102(b) as anticipated by Seraji is reversed.
The Examiner’s rejection of claim 3 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Seraji in view of Watanabe is affirmed.
The Examiner’s rejection of claim 10 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Seraji in view of Watanabe is reversed.
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No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a). See 37 C.F.R.
§ 1.136(a)(1)(iv) (2010).

AFFIRMED-IN-PART

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