Obviousness

A Person Having Ordinary Skill in the Art (POSA) at the time of the invention (priority date August 26, 2009) would have found the methods of Claims 1, 27, and 28 of US Patent 10,115,067 obvious under 35 U.S.C. § 103, based on combinations of the following prior art references cited within the patent itself:

Primary Prior Art Reference:

• US20080086386A1 to Bell ("Bell"): Titled "Conducting Remote Shopping Events," published April 10, 2008.

Secondary Prior Art References:

• US20060020522A1 to Pratt ("Pratt"): Titled "Method of conducting interactive real estate property viewing," published January 26, 2006.
• US20030125963A1 to Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. ("Philips"): Titled "Wireless interactive rendezvous system for delivering goods and services," published July 3, 2003.

Obviousness Analysis for Claims 1, 27, and 28

Claims 1, 27, and 28 of US10115067 describe a method for remote acquisition and delivery of goods, fundamentally involving:

1. A remote server receiving a customer's acquisition request for goods.
2. Deploying a mobile delivery agent system (including an image capture device and communication device) to a shopping location.
3. The agent obtaining and transmitting an image of the goods to the customer.
4. The customer providing further instructions based on the image (e.g., for inspection).
5. The agent acquiring the goods.
6. The agent delivering the goods to a delivery site.

Combination of Bell, Pratt, and Philips renders these claims obvious.

1. Bell as the Primary Reference

Bell discloses a system and method for conducting remote shopping events where:

• A consumer selects an item to purchase and sends a request to a remote shopper. This covers the remote server receiving an acquisition request from a customer.
• The remote shopper is "physically present in a store" and "communicates with the consumer, potentially using video, to help the consumer make a purchase decision." This demonstrates the concept of a live agent at a shopping location using video (implying an image capture and communication device) to assist a remote customer in a purchase, including obtaining images of goods and transmitting them.
• The remote shopper "then purchases the item and arranges for delivery." This covers acquiring the goods and delivering them to a site.

Bell thus provides the foundational elements of remote interactive shopping, agent-based acquisition, and subsequent delivery. However, it does not explicitly detail the dynamic deployment of the agent from a separate location to the shopping location, nor the specific mechanisms for interactive inspection instructions from the customer.

2. Motivation to Combine Bell with Pratt (for Interactive Inspection)

A POSA would have been motivated to combine Bell with Pratt to enhance the customer's remote inspection capabilities during the shopping process. The background of US10115067 explicitly states that "customers who are particular about style, quality or actual function, may wish to further view or otherwise examine an item before purchasing" and that current internet shopping often provides "inadequate" pictures, leading to dissatisfaction and returns.

Pratt teaches a method for "interactive real estate property viewing" where a remote user can interact with a remote party (an agent) physically present at the property. Crucially, Pratt details that the remote party uses a "mobile communication device to transmit video and audio to the user," and the user can "direct the remote party's actions" to remotely view the property, such as requesting the agent to "zoom-in on a particular feature, zoom out, pan right or pan left."

A POSA, seeking to address the stated problem of inadequate remote viewing in Bell's shopping context, would readily apply Pratt's interactive video inspection techniques to the remote shopping events described in Bell. It would be a straightforward and desirable improvement to allow a customer to give specific commands (e.g., zoom, pan) to a remote shopper (agent) inspecting goods in a store, just as a remote viewer directs an agent inspecting real estate. This combination covers the elements of obtaining an image, transmitting it, and receiving further instructions from the customer... about the first set of one or more goods based on the transmitted image (elements 5, 6, and 7 of Claim 1). The motivation is to provide the customer with more "detailed information needed to make an informed purchase" and minimize purchasing inefficiencies due to inadequate viewing, as directly articulated in the '067 patent's own background.

3. Motivation to Combine Bell with Philips (for Mobile Agent Deployment)

A POSA would also have been motivated to combine Bell with Philips to improve the efficiency and dynamic deployment of delivery agents. Bell generally describes a "remote shopper... physically present in a store" but does not explicitly detail a system for dynamically deploying a mobile agent from a remote "third location" to a "shopping location." The '067 patent's background highlights environmental and cost inefficiencies of conventional delivery methods and the need for "rapid delivery."

Philips discloses a "wireless interactive rendezvous system for delivering goods and services" that uses a "network based system for dynamically arranging a rendezvous location and time between a mobile client and a mobile server." In Philips, a "central server routes the request to one or more mobile servers that are able to provide the requested goods/services," and then coordinates their movement for delivery.

A POSA, looking to make the remote shopping service of Bell more efficient and scalable, would be motivated to integrate the dynamic mobile resource management taught by Philips. Applying Philips' server-based deployment and coordination of "mobile servers" (which are analogous to the "mobile delivery agent system" of US10115067) to Bell's remote shopper system would provide a mechanism for the server to efficiently dispatch and deploy agents to various shopping locations based on customer requests. This directly covers the elements of the at least one remote server sending instructions... to a communication device of a mobile delivery agent system located at a third location and deploying the mobile delivery agent system from the third location to a fourth, shopping location... by providing instructions to the communication device (elements 2 and 3 of Claim 1). The motivation is to create a more responsive and economically/environmentally efficient delivery service by optimizing agent deployment and reducing travel time, a goal explicitly stated in US10115067.

Conclusion of Obviousness

Claims 1, 27, and 28 of US10115067, which describe a method for remote acquisition and delivery of goods involving interactive image-based inspection and dynamic agent deployment, would have been obvious to a POSA. The combination of Bell (for the core remote shopping with an agent, video, acquisition, and delivery) with Pratt (for interactive real-time visual inspection with customer instructions) and Philips (for dynamic deployment and coordination of mobile agents) addresses the known problems and improves upon existing systems in a predictable manner. The integration of these features would have been a logical step for a POSA seeking to enhance the customer experience and operational efficiency of remote shopping and delivery services.