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 .
DETAILED ACTION
The communication received on 1/28/25 has been entered.
Response to Arguments/Amendments
The arguments have been carefully considered but not found persuisave.
Argument I
Of all the references, only Hui teaches technique for weighting biometric data but fails to apply such recognition to voting at a polling place.
Response I
While Hu teaches weighting biometric data, other references expend the notion of the biometric data use, including a polling place (e.g., Goci) with the motivation to combine.
Argument II
The number of used references addressing different areas of art should be viewed as hindsight reasoning. For example, combining Fein (online not physical) voting with Hui (weighted match) could only be produced by following application specification as a guide.
Response II
The examiner believes that applicant’s argument regarding the number of references is very important. While using more than two references, the examiner pays close attention to not only ensure that the combine prior art addresses the same concepts but also that the combinations are not unreasonable.
This is the reason why the examiner has been presenting the claimed invention in terms of concepts to be addressed rather than limiting the rejection to only separate details.
Let’s look at the combination of Fein and Hui, mentioned by applicant in the argument above. Fein attempts to address voting security via voter’s biometric information while Hui addresses specific implementation of user’s biometric verification using improved techniques. Clearly, one skilled in the art would readily appreciate to combine these two references while the advantages of these two systems could have been easily combinable with more than reasonable expectations of success.
Argument III
The assertion that the claims could be treated differently than the intended meaning of the claim is unreasonable. Specifically, Fein discusses only, remote voting via a computer and not “vote in person at a physical voting machine” and Goci provides merely discuss the biometric (fingerprint) verification with no detail of matching and no discussion of facial recognition.
Response III
First, the facial recognition is only required by claim 5 and 15, and listed as one of the few alternative biometric choices in claim 14.
As indicating in the office action(s), the examiner asserts that a machine enabling a person to (physically) vote meets the broadest reasonable interpretation of “a physical voting machine” and the person using the machine in process of voting meets the BRI of “vote in person at a physical voting machine”.
Furthermore, the examiner provided additional reference, Goci, addressing more limiting interpretation of the phrase. Note, that Goci was offered to evidenced that the need to secure voting at the physical voting machine would have been an obvious variant. Moreover, (as per facial recognition) while Fein expressly teaches facial recognition, Goci’s suggests security based on user’s biometrics to using “fingerprints or other identifying characteristics” (see Goci’s para 17).
Final Notes
Applicant a very specific patent that applies to continue issue of ensuring secure voting and, specifically not online voting.
Response
The examiner appreciates applicant’s arguments recognizing the importance of ensuring voting security.
However, looking from the point of the claimed concepts, the invention boils down to ensuring access based on a user’s characteristics (biometric) and group membership.
As such, the examiner asserts that the particular biometric or techniques of matching the biometric to particular template (identifying the user) would have been merely an obvious variant as illustrated by the prior art used in the rejection.
The remaining issue is the environment to which user’s permissions are applied.
How patentably distinct is permitting particular user (or group of users) access to resources, where these resources may be a particular computer or a particular place where the computer is located? Given the fact that access to such particular object would have been known to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the application was filed (as illustrated in the rejection) and motivation to combine, the examiner asserts that this particular feature would not patentably distinguish applicant’s invention from the prior art.
Remarks regarding the newly added limitations:
“The biometric data is a facial scan of the requesting person’s face”
Arnouse col. 2 lines 18-30; thereafter 2/18-30: “restricting operation of the system to only authorized personnel based on biometric characteristics such as facial, Arnouse col. 2 lines 18-30; thereafter 2/18-30.
Moreover, while Arnouse offers various examples of biometrics, the prior art expressly suggests “any desired biometric characteristics may be utilized”. Thus, given the fact that facial scan would have been old and well known in the art of biometric gathering at the time the application was filed, even if Arnouse did not specify facial biometrics, the required limitation would have at most be an obvious variant offering the predictable benefit of customization and security.
Note that facial scan was also taught by another prior art cited reference, Hui.)
“wherein comparing applies a fuzzy match to which a weighting is applied to determine a match by comparing the facial scan of the requesting person’s face to facial scans stored in the database of biometric data”
Hui’s entire text: e.g., The system uses face verification for biometric authentication… evaluate mismatch between acquisition during enrollment and verification… Different weights are assigned to biometric samples of different qualities using fuzzy logic to create a dynamic decision boundary for determining a user’s identity by dynamically weighted average fusion. This paper describes biometric verification system that is fully adaptive to variability in data acquisition using fuzzy logic decision fusion. The system uses fuzzy logic to dynamically alter the weight of face taking into account the variations during data acquisition (e.g. lighting, noise and user-device interactions). A specific decision boundary can be determined by this dynamic weight assignment to make the authentication decisions.
Note that Arnouse (biometric check compared against stored biometric information contained in database, 5/27-35) as well as Griffin cited in the previous Office Action teaches comparing biometric to the database of biometric data.
“wherein multiple groups authorized to access the secured service have different access levels”.
Arnouse col. 2 lines 18-30; thereafter 2/18-30: “restricting operation of the aircraft service to only authorized personnel based on biometric, e.g., flight the aircraft, turn off and/or on the aircraft beacon system, etc.
Claims 1, 4-10 and 12-20 are pending.
The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
In nutshell applicant’s invention allows access based on biometric authentication.
Specifically, the invention articulated by the independent claims requires following concepts to be met.
A: 1 Request access
A: 2 Capture biometrics of a requesting person
A: 3 Use the biometric data to determine person’s identity
A: 4 Based on the identity (and profile information) determine whether a person is authorized for the access
A: 5 Grant/deny access accordingly
Additionally, there are two different concepts as follow:
B: 1 The access is enforced for a person at a physical voting machine at a polling place
B: 2 Access being time specific
B: 3 different groups authorized to access having different levels
The newly added limitation into the independent claims:
C: 1 Biometrics is a facial scan
C: 2a Identifying by comparing the facial scan to database
C: 2b Comparing applying a fuzzy match with applied weighting
Prior art used to address the independent claims:
Arnouse (USPN 7024023),
Fein (USPUB 20090079538),
Janssen (USPUB 20030163510),
Fertell (USPUB 20020099825),
Park (USPUB 20200106778),
Griffin (USPN 10193884),
Goci (USPUB 20030195798),
Hui (Hui et al., “Adaptive Weight Estimation In Multi-Biometric Verification Using Fazzy Logic Decision Fusion”, Conference Paper in Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing, 1988. ICASSP-88., 1988 International Conference on May 2007, DOI: 10.1109/ICASSP.2007.366726),
Ahmad (Ahmad et al. “Image-based Face Detection and Recognition: ‘State of the Art’,” International Journal of Computer Science Issues (IJCSI), vol. 9, no. 6, pp. 169, 2012).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The invention cumulates several different known concepts of access control (user verification, biometrics, group permissions, etc.) in one claimed invention requiring multiple references. The claims require application of these concepts within a particular situations (environments), adding additional complexity to the rejection. For the purpose of clarity, this rejection is presented based on claimed concepts.
Claims 1, 5-6, 9-10, 12-14, 16-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) unpatentable over Arnouse in view of Fein, Janssen, Hui and Fertell or, in alternative Park, and further in view of Ahmad.
Arnouse is directed to a security mechanism identifying users so as to restrict operation to authorized users, such as to persons authorized to fly a given aircraft (see Abstract).
In col. 2 lines 18-30, 3/45-47, 4/8-9, Arnouse teaches restricting operation of the aircraft service based on facial biometric or fingerprint to only authorized personnel, e.g., grant only the designated pilot and copilot ability to fly the aircraft, granting designated crew the ability to turn off and/or on the aircraft beacon system, etc., and employ desired restrictions, such as access to any (e.g., cockpit) area, via biometric interlock on doors, panels and/or hatches
This limitation addresses the following:
receiving a request to access a secured service, wherein receiving the request comprises receiving the request from a requesting person
capturing biometric data from the requesting person, wherein the biometric data is a facial scan of the requesting person’s face;
determining the requesting person's identity by comparing the captured biometric data to a database of biometric data of known persons to distinguish the requesting person from other people
upon determining that the requesting person is a member of the group of members authorized to access the secured service based on the captured biometric data and on the matching person's determined identity cannot be given access
upon determining that the requesting person is not a member of the group of members authorized to access the secured service and the time of receipt of the request is not within the select duration, then denying the requesting person access to the secured service by at least one of locking a door, blocking access to a secured area of software, or disengaging a relay, wherein the preceding steps are performed by at least one processor.
Arnouse’s invention pertains to the aircraft security using biometric. Thus, the prior art fails to the request comprises receiving the request from a requesting person at a polling place trying to vote in person at a physical voting machine.
However, in the related art, Fein discusses such teaching (utilizing online voting station, verifying the biometric information of a voter based on a security level and in response to acceptable verification, sending a voting ballot, para 7). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the application was filed to extend Arnouse’s as modified invention within the context of a requesting person at a polling place trying to vote in person at a physical voting machine given the predictable benefit of customization and access control.
Furthermore, while Arnouse’s as modified teaches comparing the facial scan of the requesting person’s face to facial scans stored in the database of biometric data (2/18-30), and Hui suggests
comparing by applying a fuzzy match to which a weighting is applied to determine a match (see the entire text: e.g., The system uses face verification for biometric authentication… evaluate mismatch between acquisition during enrollment and verification… Different weights are assigned to biometric samples of different qualities using fuzzy logic to create a dynamic decision boundary for determining a user’s identity by dynamically weighted average fusion. This paper describes biometric verification system that is fully adaptive to variability in data acquisition using fuzzy logic decision fusion. The system uses fuzzy logic to dynamically alter the weight of face taking into account the variations during data acquisition (e.g. lighting, noise and user-device interactions). A specific decision boundary can be determined by this dynamic weight assignment to make the authentication decisions.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the invention to include Hui’s teaching into the Arnouse’s invention given the benefit of efficient biometric verification.
As per based upon the determined identity and profile information associated with the requesting person determining whether the requesting person is a member of a group of members authorized to access the secured service, while Arnouse teaches determining identity of the person (biometric check implemented to verify identity of the person before giving any authority, 5/27-29), the difference between the prior art and the claim language is determining the requesting person is a member of a group of members which would affect user’s permissions being based on the identity and the profile information associated with the person.
However, Janssen suggests such solution (the user profile comprises a group membership list, detailing the groups of which the identified user is a member, users can inherit access rights accorded to particular groups, para 20, 26, 34 and 47). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the invention to include Janssen teaching into Arnouse’s invention given the benefit of more efficient system management.
Unlike applicant’s claims, Arnouse’s as modified invention teaching of access restriction does not take in consideration the concept of the access being time specific as pertaining to the received request (“a time of receipt of the request is within a select duration during which the requesting person has access”). However, the concept of including the specified duration for authorizing access would have been old and well known in the art of access control as illustrated by Fertell (see Fig. 6 and the associated text) or Park (see para 30). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the invention to include access controlled by a selected duration given the benefit of more granular and customized access control. Similarly, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the invention to include/substitute (with) known techniques of user authorization as taught by Arnouse as modified into Fertell/Park’s invention given the predictable benefit of access control.
Arnouse as modified teaches retrieving the previously taken user information including biometrics from the database on or outside the aircraft, 3/60-4/10, and although not expressly cited updating the database when a new person joins or leaves the entity/company clearly such limitation would have been implicit. Not updating information reflecting changes could jeopardize functionality/usefulness/security of the Arnouse’s invention.
Lastly, as per the terms “a corporate server” clearly a particular term/identifier would not functionality of the invention: the server storing the corporate data could reasonably meet the limitation of the corporate server. Furthermore, even if corporate data stored on a third party server was not to be equated to “a corporate server” a skilled in the art would readily appreciate that there are only a few finite solution to offer data storage/maintenance: in house (corporate or satellite office) or third-party (contractor) place, each being an old and well known variant in the art before the effective filling date of the invention offering the predictable benefit of customization and data access.
as per the terms “a corporate server” clearly a particular term/identifier would not functionality of the invention: the server storing the corporate data could reasonably meet the limitation of the corporate server. Furthermore, even if corporate data stored on a third party server was not to be equated to “a corporate server” a skilled in the art would readily appreciate that there are only a few finite solution to offer data storage/maintenance: in house (corporate or satellite office) or third-party (contractor) place, each being an old and well known variant in the art before the effective filling date of the invention offering the predictable benefit of customization and data access.
Claim 4 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) unpatentable over Arnouse in view of Fein, Janssen, Hui, Fertell/Park, and further in view of Colvin’s (USPUB 20040107368) or Bostick’s (USPUB 20130239191).
The examiner asserts that in the broadest reasonable interpretation users may only have suspicion but not exact knowledge that their access is being verified given the fact that upon providing their credentials (biometric or otherwise) they are offered access. However, for the purpose of the expedited prosecution, the examiner offers Colvin’s and Bostick’s references that addresses more closely the intended meaning of claim 4 (Colvin’s para 120, Bostick’s para 13). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the invention to include operating transparently without users knowing that their access is being verified given the benefit of usability.
Claim 7 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) unpatentable over Arnouse in view of Janssen, Hui, Fertell/Park, Fein and Ahmad, and further in view of Lindeman (USPUB 20120129503).
Arnouse as modified teaches determining the identity as discussed above.
Arnouse does not, but in related art, Lindeman suggest maintaining a profile for each known person that contains all of the information known about that person as well as information about security groups of which the person is a member (para 47). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the invention to include Lindeman’s teaching into Arnouse’s as modified invention given the benefit of customization.
Claim 15 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) unpatentable over Arnouse in view of Janssen, Hui, Fertell/Park, Fein and Ahmad, and further in view of Ionita (USPUB 20180046853).
Although one could argue that gathered biometric data obtained by the biometric detection component is compared clearly indicate the process of normalization, for the purpose of the expedited prosecution the examiner offers Ionita reference that expressly teaches component that normalizes facial recognition data to include a limited number of points scanned on a face that stay the same even when the person turns his or her head a different direction (see Fig. 2, 8-9 and 14-15 with the associated text). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the invention to include Ionita’s teaching into Arnouse’s modified invention given the predictable benefit of user recognition.
Claims 1, 5-6, 9-14, 16-17 and 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) unpatentable over Fein (USPUB 20090079538) in view of Janssen (USPUB 20030163510), Fertell (USPUB 20020099825) or, in alternative Park (USPUB 20200106778) and Griffin (USPN 10193884).
Fein is directed to a security mechanism identifying users so as to restrict operation to authorized users, such as to persons authorized allowed to submit a voting ballot (see Abstract).
Specifically, Fein teaches system restricting voting to only authorized personnel utilizing biometric readers (fingerprint, facial, etc.), biometrics may be utilized wherever restrictions may be desired, e.g., voting ballot submission (para 23), biometric check performed to verify identity, such as taken from the voter on whether or not an authorized person has been identified (4/2-25, 7/1-7, etc.).
Fein’s teaching discussed above addresses the claimed concepts (discussed above in regard to Arnouse), specifically, access request, capturing biometrics of a requesting person, using the biometric data to determine person’s identity and gran/deny access accordingly as well as partially the concept of Based on the identity (and profile information) determine whether a person is authorized for the access (determining whether the requesting person is a member of a group of members authorized to access the secured service (t) and although not expressly required by the claimed invention, Fein suggests that access may be involve more than one group (different security levels may require different/additional authentication requirements/biometrics, see Fig. 2A-C with the associated tex).
The difference between Fein and the claim language is determining the requesting person is a member of a group of members which would affect user’s permissions being based on the identity and the profile information associated with the person. However, Janssen suggests such solution (the user profile comprises a group membership list, detailing the groups of which the identified user is a member, users can inherit access rights accorded to particular groups, para 20, 26, 34 and 47). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the invention to include Janssen teaching into Fein’s invention given the benefit of more efficient system management.
Unlike applicant’s claims, Fein as modified invention teaching of access restriction does not take in consideration the concept of the access being time specific as pertaining to the received request (“a time of receipt of the request is within a select duration during which the requesting person has access”).
However, the concept of including the specified duration for authorizing access would have been old and well known in the art of access control as illustrated by Fertell (see Fig. 6 and the associated text) or Park (see para 30). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the invention to include access controlled by a selected duration given the benefit of more granular and customized access control.
Similarly, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the invention to include/substitute (with) known techniques of user authorization as taught by Fein as modified into Fertell/Park’s invention given the predictable benefit of access control.
As per the terms “a corporate server” clearly a particular term/identifier would not functionality of the invention: the server storing the corporate data could reasonably meet the limitation of the corporate server. Furthermore, even if corporate data stored on a third party server was not to be equated to “a corporate server” a skilled in the art would readily appreciate that there are only a few finite solution to offer data storage/maintenance: in house (corporate or satellite office) or third-party (contractor) place, each being an old and well known variant in the art before the effective filling date of the invention offering the predictable benefit of customization and data access.
Additionally, the examiner points out that the difference between the prior art and applicant labels would amount merely to the non-functional material, not distinguishing the invention from the prior art in terms of allowability: the process of biometric security as cited in the claims would not be affected by the any particular naming convention.
Lastly, note that in the above interpretation, the examiner asserted that the limitation of determining the requesting person's identity by comparing the captured biometric data to a database of biometric data of known persons to distinguish the requesting person from other would have been implicit given the fact that limiting the invention to a single user would defeat the purpose of Fein’s invention. However, for the purpose of the expedited prosecution, the examiner offers Griffin that expressly suggests such solution (biometric authentication process including identification that is the process of comparing a submitted biometric sample against multiple enrolled reference templates to determine an individual identity. Identification is a “one-to-many” comparison that entails the comparison of a match template generated from a newly captures sample with multiple templates in the database … Identification is most often used to determine whether or not a person has previously enrolled tin the system as used by law enforcement to identify unknown suspect, for example, 3/67-4/17) and having such solution would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the invention given the benefit of scalability.
Furthermore, having multiple groups with different levels of authorization [Official Notice is taken] would have been old and well known in the art of security (see Windows environment, e.g., users, power users, administrators, etc.) at the time the application was filed to providing the benefit of more customized and granular security/access control.
Updating the database (that stores current users) when a new person joins or leaves the entity/company would have been implicit. Not only updating information reflecting changes could jeopardize functionality/usefulness/security of the Fein’s invention.
Claim 4 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) unpatentable over Fein/Park in view of Janssen, Fertell/Park and Griffin, and further in view of Colvin (USPUB 20040107368) or Bostick (USPUB 20130239191).
The examiner asserts that in the broadest reasonable interpretation users may only have suspicion but not exact knowledge that their access is being verified given the fact that upon providing their credentials (biometric or otherwise) they are offered access. However, for the purpose of the expedited prosecution, the examiner offers Colvin’s and Bostick’s references that addresses more closely the intended meaning of claim 4 (Colvin’s para 120, Bostick’s para 13). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the invention to include operating transparently without users knowing that their access is being verified given the benefit of usability.
Claim 7 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) unpatentable over Fein/Park in view of Janssen, Fertell/Park and Griffin, and further in view of Lindeman (USPUB 20120129503).
Fein as modified teaches determining the identity as discussed above.
Fein does not, but in related art, Lindeman suggest maintaining a profile for each known person that contains all of the information known about that person as well as information about security groups of which the person is a member (para 47). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the invention to include Lindeman’s teaching into Fein’s as modified invention given the benefit of customization.
Claim 8 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) unpatentable over Fein in view of Janssen, Fertell/Park and Griffin, and further in view of Ting (USPUB 20020174344) or Ahmad (Ahmad et al. “Image-based Face Detection and Recognition: ‘State of the Art’,” International Journal of Computer Science Issues (IJCSI), vol. 9, no. 6, pp. 169, 2012).
Fein as modified teaches determining the identity by comparing biometric data as discussed above.
Furthermore, Ting and Ahmad teach normalizing the biometric data (Ting’s para 42 and Ahmad’s entire text). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the invention to include Ting’s or Ahmad’s normalizing into Fein’s as modified invention given the predictable benefit of data operation.
Claim 15 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) unpatentable over Fein in view of Janssen and Fertell/Park, and further in view of Ionita (USPUB 20180046853).
Although one could argue that gathered biometric data obtained by the biometric detection component is compared clearly indicate the process of normalization, for the purpose of the expedited prosecution the examiner offers Ionita reference that expressly teaches component that normalizes facial recognition data to include a limited number of points scanned on a face that stay the same even when the person turns his or her head a different direction (see Fig. 2, 8-9 and 14-15 with the associated text). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the invention to include Ionita’s teaching into Fein’s modified invention given the predictable benefit of user recognition.
Claim 18 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) unpatentable over Fein in view of Janssen and Fertell/Park, and further in view of Hui (Hui et al., “Adaptive Weight Estimation In Multi-Biometric Verification Using Fazzy Logic Decision Fusion”, Conference Paper in Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing, 1988. ICASSP-88., 1988 International Conference on May 2007, DOI: 10.1109/ICASSP.2007.366726).
Fein as modified teaches the biometric comparison component applying a match as discussed above.
Fein as modified does not but, in related art, Hui teaches the biometric comparison component applies a fuzzy match, to which a weighting is applied to determine a match (Note the entire text). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the invention to include Hui’s teaching into the Fein’s as modified invention given the benefit of biometric verification.
Claims 1, 5-6, 7 9-10, 12-14, 16-17 and 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) unpatentable over Arnouse (USPN 7024023) in view of Janssen (USPUB 20030163510), Fertell (USPUB 20020099825) or, in alternative Park (USPUB 20200106778), and Griffin (USPN 10193884); and further in view of Fein (USPUB 20090079538) or, in alternative Goci (USPUB 20030195798).
Claims 1, 4-6, 7-14, 16-20 have been addressed above.
For the purpose of the expedited prosecution, the examiner offers Gocci’s reference that expressly addresses concept B1 with the alternative (narrower) interpretation of labels used in the claim language. Specifically, Goci illustrates that the concept of utilizing biometric identification at a physical voting machine, at the polling place would have been an obvious variant at the time the application was filed (identification may be determined using fingerprints using at the voting station located within a voting precinct or polling place connected to the server within the precinct, para 12 and 33). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the application was filed to include Goci’s teaching into Fein’s as modified invention given the benefit of customization. Alternatively, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the application was filed to include Fein’s as modified into Goci’s invention given the benefit of mobility, usability and increased/custom security.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any extension fee pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Peter Poltorak whose telephone number is (571) 272-3840. The examiner can normally be reached Monday through Thursday from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Jeffrey Pwu can be reached on (571) 272-6798. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is (571) 273-8300.
Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://pair-direct.uspto.gov. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free).
/PIOTR POLTORAK/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2433