DETAILED ACTION
This action is responsive to applicant’s communication filed 06/29/2026.
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 .
Status of the Claims
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments on Pages 2-5 regarding the new matter rejection under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) have been fully considered and are persuasive. The 35 U.S.C. 112(a) rejections made in the previous office action have been withdrawn.
Applicant’s arguments regarding the prior art have been fully considered but are not persuasive
Applicant argues on Page 6 of the Remarks that “Applicant is unable to identify any disclosure that the recognized voice-derived field values are independently normalized into a persistent customer profile or other reusable data store from which information could later be retrieved to populate a different government form in a subsequent session.” The claims do not recite the features applicant is relying on. Namely, the claims do not require “independent normalization” of field values, a “customer profile”, a “reusable data store” for “later retrieval”, and a “subsequent session”. In response to applicant's argument that the references fail to show certain features of the invention, it is noted that the features upon which applicant relies are not recited in the rejected claim(s). Although the claims are interpreted in light of the specification, limitations from the specification are not read into the claims. See In re Van Geuns, 988 F.2d 1181, 26 USPQ2d 1057 (Fed. Cir. 1993).
Applicant argues on Page 7 that Lopata’s lack of voice-entry of form data features, rather relying on keypad entry, renders the combination with Huff improper. In response to applicant's arguments against the references individually, one cannot show nonobviousness by attacking references individually where the rejections are based on combinations of references. See In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 208 USPQ 871 (CCPA 1981); In re Merck & Co., 800 F.2d 1091, 231 USPQ 375 (Fed. Cir. 1986). Huff is the primary reference that teaches automatically filling out a form during a voice conversation between a user and an operator. Lopata is not relied upon for these features. Its lack of these features or its teaching of using a different type of input operation does not teach away from the combination. Obviousness of a combination does not hinge on the references all having the same features; rather, the deficiencies of one reference are remedied by what is reasonably known by a person of ordinary skill in the art as evidenced by the prior art.
In this case, Lopata is relied upon to teach that the forms are a plurality of forms from different government agencies, that the answers to the form are verified per a government standard, that the forms are automatically transmitted to and processed within the government, and the limitations “wherein at least a portion of the plurality of questions asked to complete a first government form are not re-asked to the user when completing a second government form from a different government agency, and answers previously obtained… are automatically applied to corresponding fields of the second government form without further user input”. See ¶ 13 and 51 of Lopata, in particular. Lopata teaches automatically pre-populating corresponding blank fields in a form that a user desires to fill out and file with a government agency. The selected form is accessed from a single access point that provides a user with access to multiple government forms from multiple government agencies, the single access point also providing the data field storage and pre-population mechanisms. Previously entered data pertaining to a user, i.e. data the user had previously entered when filling out a first form, is used to pre-populate appropriate fields of other forms selected to be completed by a user. Again, the answers being previously obtained “by voice” is taught by Huff. The combination with Lopata teaches that such answers that were previously obtained, by any means, would be available for automatic form completion of other government forms. In other words, the answers that were obtained by voice, as taught by Huff, would be stored in a database associated with the user, as discussed by Lopata, for future use when filling out other forms. See the relevant portions of Lopata below:
“At the web site, the customer selects a form for filing with a government agency. When presented to the customer, the selected form may have some of its data fields being pre-populated according to information retrieved from a database and specific to that customer. The customer completes the remaining data fields of the form, and submits it for handling and processing.” ¶ 13
“A customer 900 accesses web services 902 at a single access point for submitting filings to one of a plurality of government agencies. The single access point is, in the exemplary embodiment, a web site. Displayed at the web site, through web services 902, is a library of converted electronic forms 904 stored in file server databases 906. The customer 900 selects a form from the library of converted electronic forms 904, and the selected form is presented to the customer 900 on the web site for completion. First, a database server 908 is queried to determine whether data specific to this customer and pertinent to any of the blank data fields of the selected form have been previously stored. If so, the data is used to populated those blank data fields prior to presenting the form.”
Applicant argues on Page 9 that that Huff and Lopata cannot be combined due to the systems having different software architectures. In response to applicant's argument, the test for obviousness is not whether the features of a secondary reference may be bodily incorporated into the structure of the primary reference; nor is it that the claimed invention must be expressly suggested in any one or all of the references. Rather, the test is what the combined teachings of the references would have suggested to those of ordinary skill in the art. See In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 208 USPQ 871 (CCPA 1981). See above for the support for the combination of Huff and Lopata. Furthermore, in response to applicant's argument that the references fail to show certain features of the invention (“semantic equivalence mapping”, “cross-agency structural mapping”), it is noted that the features upon which applicant relies are not recited in the rejected claim(s). Although the claims are interpreted in light of the specification, limitations from the specification are not read into the claims. See In re Van Geuns, 988 F.2d 1181, 26 USPQ2d 1057 (Fed. Cir. 1993). Furthermore, if Lopata teaches a single access point for filling out multiple government forms for different agencies and populating appropriate fields on the user-selected forms with previously obtained data, then there must be some software mechanism for determining the appropriate fields for populating the data into the form, including determining the location (i.e. structure) and the label (i.e. semantics) of the fields of each form.
Applicant’s argument at the end of Page 7 through Page 8 that Lopata does not teach entering data fields without any user input because data fields where there is no previous information would require manual entry is not supported by the claim. The claim recites that “answers previously obtained by voice are automatically applied to corresponding fields of the second government form without further user input”. If answers were not previously obtained, then user input may be required, according to the claim, which is also the case in Lopata. The previously obtained answers are automatically populated into the form in Lopata, so they are applied to the corresponding fields without user input. The previous user input being a voice input is taught by Huff. Again, the combination of Huff and Lopata teaches storing the user’s previous voice entries for future automatic population on other forms.
Applicant argues at the top of Page 10 that Lopata does not teach the claimed confirmation that the answers from the user are accurate per a government standard. However, Lopata teaches this in at least in Paragraph 30: “business process orchestration software determines the proper format for data from the submitted form in order to be properly received and processed by the government agency systems 302, 304”. Neither the claims nor the specification elaborate on what “confirming that the answers from the user are accurate per a government standard” entails, and this teaching from Lopata reads on the plain meaning of the claim language.
Applicant argues at the bottom of Page 10 that Semenovskiy cannot be combined with Huff and Lopata, again, because Semenovskiy teaches a different architecture. In response to applicant's argument, the test for obviousness is not whether the features of a secondary reference may be bodily incorporated into the structure of the primary reference; nor is it that the claimed invention must be expressly suggested in any one or all of the references. Rather, the test is what the combined teachings of the references would have suggested to those of ordinary skill in the art. See In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 208 USPQ 871 (CCPA 1981). Every feature of Semenovskiy does not have to be combined with every feature of the other references. Rather, the claims require “verifying the user or a user's signature using a vital document, a third-party signature service, or an electronic token exchange” and “wherein the electronic transmission is performed using encrypted communication”. The relevant portions of Semenovskiy that teach these limitations, as cited, are ¶ 72, 89 and Fig. 12B. Semenovskiy provides support that a person or ordinary skill in the art would have considered a verification process of the user or the user’s signature using a vital document, a third party signature service, or an electronic token exchange and would have considered using encrypted communication. The specific architecture used to implement the features of the claims as taught by the prior art would be reasonably determined by a person of ordinary skill in the art.
Applicant argues on Pages 11-12 that Swvigaradoss does not teach that the chatbot asks the questions by voice. However, the claims only require that the user answers the questions by voice. Applicant’s arguments are therefore respectfully moot. Furthermore, the chat bot having a text-to-voice feature is very well known in the art and the examiner would take official notice add another reference explaining that it would have been obvious for the chatbot to be voice-based if such a feature were amended into the claims, assuming support in the specification.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 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 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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 1-4, 7-11, 14-17, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over HUFF (US 7,907,705 B1) in view of LOPATA (US 2010/0153441 A1) and further in view of SEMENOVSKIY (US 2021/0281421 A1).
Regarding Claim 1, HUFF teaches a computerized method for completing a plurality of government form by voice, the method comprising the steps of: (“the invention relates to a method for capturing information from a live conversation between an operator and a customer… recognizing at least one portion of the live conversation as a text portion after converting the live conversation to text… and storing information obtained from the text portion into the information field, wherein the information obtained from the text portion comprises at least one word spoken after the cue” Col. 2:11-18. This is an overview of the method for completing a form by voice. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art for the method to be performed for any type of form, including government forms. The form being a government form would not distinguish from the technical solution taught by HUFF.)
a user answering by voice a plurality of questions (“Given this information, the Context Designator (110) includes functionality to "listen for" cues as it obtains a stream of text from the Speech Recognition Engine (114). Upon "hearing" a cue, the Context Designator (110) knows the associated data field ID and type.” Col. 5:9-13. “For example, in one embodiment of the invention, the cues may be particular words within verbal phrases such as "Could you please give me your full name?" or "What is your home address?" where the cue is the word "name" and "address."… the cues recited by the operator may correspond to information that is included in the context that includes the information field to be completed with customer information.” Col. 6:56-55. “the information from the portion of text following each recognized cue may be recorded as information relating to the information field (Step 310)” Col. 8:4-6. Cues, which are within questions that are asked by a human operator to a customer user, correspond to the plurality of fields of the form. The user answers the plurality of questions and the user’s answers are recorded in the appropriate information field based on the detected cue.)
that correspond to a plurality of fields on a plurality of… forms… (“the Context Designator (110) is responsible for recognizing cues and relating text from the live conversation with fields in the document/form based on the cues. In one embodiment of the invention, the Context Designator (110) may be operatively connected to a repository (not shown) configured to store documents/forms that are retrieved to record information from the live conversation” Col. 4:52-58. A plurality of fields in at least one document or form are filled based on a user’s answers extracted from a conversation. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art for the process to be repeated any number of times to fill out a plurality of forms having a plurality of fields. As stated previously, the plurality of forms being government forms would not distinguish from such a solution.)
…confirming that the answers from the user are accurate… (“common fields of information may include a customer name, an address, an occupation, a phone number, etc. In this case, the restricted grammar may expect words or phrases associated with such fields of customer information. In one embodiment of the invention, the Speech Recognition Engine (114) is a learning engine that improves accuracy and performance using corrections made by the operator (106) such that the Speech Recognition Engine (114) may be better able to recognize types of customer information in the future” Col. 4:38-47. “Simultaneously or subsequent to the completion of the recording of information into the document/form, the document/form may be reviewed to check whether the speech recognition was performed accurately and to confirm the validity of the information (Step 208).” Col. 7:30-34.)
completing the plurality of… forms with the answers to the plurality of questions using a computer-implemented form-filling process; (“Thus, the form/document retrieved and automatically completed using the DAS (108) is presented on-screen to the operator by the computer application (107).” Col. 4:62-64. “The operator can continue to interview the customer in a similar fashion as described above until all the information fields of the document have been completed and all relevant customer information has been recorded to satisfy the purpose of the customer's call.” Col. 9:6-10. The answers provided by the user are automatically entered into the fields of the form corresponding to each question/cue until the form is completed.)
While HUFF at least suggests a process for filling a plurality of forms, HUFF does not explicitly teach the process being completed for a plurality of government forms from different government agencies;
While HUFF teaches validation of the user’s answers, HUFF does not explicitly teach that the answers are accurate per a government standard with a computer-implemented verification process.
HUFF does not teach and electronically transmitting the plurality of completed government forms to the government for processing, wherein the electronic transmission is performed using encrypted communication and enables automatic processing within the government.
While HUFF teaches obtaining answers by voice (Col. 5:9-13, Col. 6:56-55, Col. 8:4-6), HUFF does not teach wherein at least a portion of the plurality of questions asked to complete a first government form are not re-asked to the user when completing a second government form from a different government agency, and answers previously obtained… are automatically applied to corresponding fields of the second government form without further user input.
However, LOPATA, which is directed to a single access point for filling and filing a plurality of government forms with different government agencies, teaches the process being completed for a plurality of government forms from different government agencies; (See Paragraphs 13, 28-31, 49, 51, 53, 55: A user accesses a plurality of government forms from different government agencies via a single access point. The user can then manually fill blank fields in the forms or answer questions asked by a telephone operator to fill out the blank fields. Completed forms are transmitted to the appropriate government agencies.)
teaches verifying that answers are accurate per a government standard with a computer-implemented verification process. (Paragraph 30, 51: Data mapping software and translator components are used to convert submitted form data into the proper format for submission to the appropriate government agency: “business process orchestration software determines the proper format for data from the submitted form in order to be properly received and processed by the government agency systems 302, 304”. Therefore, there is a computer-implemented process of verifying that the data is correct per a government standard.)
and teaches electronically transmitting the plurality of completed government forms to the government for processing… and enables automatic processing within the government. (Paragraphs 30, 34, 50-51: After a user submits a form, it is electronically transmitted to the appropriate government agency, where the form data is verified and then automatically processed as a transaction with the agency.)
wherein at least a portion of the plurality of questions asked to complete a first government form are not re-asked to the user when completing a second government form from a different government agency, and answers previously obtained… are automatically applied to corresponding fields of the second government form without further user input. (¶ 13: “Multiple electronic forms are accessible to the customer at a single access point, such as on a web site. At the web site, the customer selects a form for filing with a government agency. When presented to the customer, the selected form may have some of its data fields being pre-populated according to information retrieved from a database and specific to that customer.” Also see ¶ 51: “First, a database server 908 is queried to determine whether data specific to this customer and pertinent to any of the blank data fields of the selected form have been previously stored. If so, the data is used to populated those blank data fields prior to presenting the form.” Previously stored form data pertaining to corresponding fields of a government form are not re-asked to the user. Rather, the pertinent data is automatically applied to the corresponding fields of the government form without further user input. This process is repeated for each form selected to be completed by the user, of multiple electronic forms to be filed with the appropriate government agency. Also see ¶ 53, which teaches that the automatic pre-population is performed for all applications for all government agencies, and ¶ 34, 50, and 55, which teaches that data entered by a user to fill a form is saved and maintained.)
Before the effective filing date of the invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the automatic completion of a form during a live conversation between a user and an operator taught by HUFF by applying the system to the electronic filling and filing of a plurality of government forms, including pre-population of previously stored user data, from different government agencies and validating the user’s answers against the requirements of the government forms as taught by LOPATA. Since both references are directed to automatic form completion and since they both teach validation of the user’s answers, the combination would have yielded predictable results. Furthermore, as suggested by LOPATA (¶ 10, 12-13), providing a single access point for a user to fill and file multiple government forms with multiple different agencies would reduce inefficiencies in the filing system and save the user time.
HUFF in view of LOPATA does not teach verifying the user or a user's signature using a vital document, a third-party signature service, or an electronic token exchange and wherein the electronic transmission is performed using encrypted communication.
However, SEMENOVSKIY, which is directed to authenticating digitally signed documents, teaches verifying the user or a user's signature using a vital document, a third-party signature service, or an electronic token exchange (“Before signing any documents, users are required to verify their identity using government-issued identification and, for example, a Live Photo (i.e., a “selfie”)… once the user verifies their identity, the system allows the user to start signing the documents using the wallet as cryptographic key pair and Blockchain account that is linked to the KYC profile of the user.” Paragraph 89. See Figure 12B, which shows the verification of a user using a third-party signature service.)
and wherein the electronic transmission is performed using encrypted communication. (“a step 72 of generating a unique file key for each file; a step 74 of encrypting each document with the corresponding file key (e.g., using an AES-256 algorithm) to protect the privacy of the signing parties; a step 76 of computing shared secrets between wallets; a step 78 of encrypting file keys with corresponding shared secrets, preferably computed for a pair of wallets, as a passphrase; a step 80 of uploading documents to a decentralized content-addressable storage (“CAS”) or an InterPlanetary File System (“IPFS”) as an implementation of a decentralized CAS where an address that is represented by the content hash is assigned to each file when storing a file on a CAS such as IPFS” Paragraph 72. Signed documents are transmitted using encrypted communication.)
Before the effective filing date of the invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the automatic completion and transmission of a government form during a live conversation between a user and an operator taught by HUFF in view of LOPATA by incorporating the teachings of electronic signature verification and encrypted communication taught by SEMENOVSKIY. Since SEMENOVISKY is also directed to electronic submission of user data, the combination would have yielded predictable results. Such an implementation would have improved the security of the system and protect the user’s data. Furthermore, as taught by SEMENOVSKIY (Paragraphs 12-13), such an implementation would ensure that a document is signed by the correct signatory, which one of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to apply to the submission of government forms, such as those taught by LOPATA.
Regarding Claim 8, HUFF in view of LOPATA and SEMENOVSKIY further teaches a non-transient computer-readable storage medium comprising instructions being executable by one or more processors to perform a method for completing a government form by voice, the method comprising: (HUFF, “For example, as shown in FIG. 4, a networked computer system (400) includes a processor (402), associated memory (404), a storage device (406)” Col. 9:12-15. Figs. 2 and 4.).
Note: Claim 8 does not recite the limitations “wherein at least a portion of the plurality of questions asked to complete a first government form are not re-asked to the user when completing a second government form from a different government agency, and answers previously obtained by voice are automatically applied to corresponding fields of the second government form without further user input”. Claim 8 is a broader version of claim 1 that is encompassed by the limitations of claim 1 and is still rejected in view of the same combination of references. Claim 8 is therefore rejected for the same reasoning described above minus the discussion of the above limitation.
Regarding Claim 15, HUFF in view of LOPATA and SEMENOVSKIY further teaches a system for filling a government form by voice, comprising: one or more hardware processors configured by machine-readable instructions to: (HUFF. “For example, as shown in FIG. 4, a networked computer system (400) includes a processor (402), associated memory (404), a storage device (406)” Col. 9:12-15. Figs. 2 and 4.)
Claim 15 otherwise recites the same limitations as claim 1 and is rejected for the same reasoning described above.
Regarding Claim 2, HUFF in view of LOPATA and SEMENOVSKIY further teaches further comprising the user calling a dedicated phone number and a computer or processor processing the user’s call. (HUFF, “Specifically, the customer (102) may place a phone call to the operator or the operator’s place of employment for some type of customer support” Col. 3:44-46. “the phone system (104) is configured to forward the live conversation between the customer (102) and the operator (106) to the Document Assistance System (DAS) (108)” Col. 3:64-66. The user calls a specific phone number for an operator or an operator’s place of employment and the call is then processed by the system for automatic form completion.)
Claim 9 and claim 16 recite the same limitations as claim 2 and are rejected using the same reasoning described above.
Regarding Claim 3, HUFF in view of LOPATA and SEMENOVSKIY further teaches wherein one or more human agents ask the plurality of questions. (HUFF, “the operator (106) may be an individual working for a variety of organization” Col. 3:35-36. An operator is a human agent that asks the questions for filling the form.)
Claim 10 and claim 17 recite the same limitations as claim 3 and are rejected using the same reasoning described above.
Regarding Claim 4, HUFF in view of LOPATA and SEMENOVSKIY further teaches wherein the one or more human agents comprise a customer service agent, a form expert, or both. (HUFF, “Specifically, the customer (102) may place a phone call to the operator or the operator’s place of employment for some type of customer support. For example, the customer (102) may provide/request particular information, schedule an appointment to receive services provided by the operator or the operator’s (106) employer, make a purchase/sell a produce over the telephone, request for a modification to be made to particular information associated with the customer or the customer’s organization, etc.” Col. 3:44-53. The human operator is a customer service agent.)
Claim 11 recites the same limitations as claim 4 and is rejected using the same reasoning described above.
Regarding Claim 7, HUFF in view of LOPATA and SEMENOVSKIY further teaches wherein the user has not physically used a computing device but has only interacted with a human agent or non-human artificial intelligence agent to complete and electronically transmit the plurality of government forms to the government. (HUFF, “In one or more embodiments of the invention, the DAS (108) is responsible for processing the live conversation and capturing information from the live conversation. In one embodiment of the invention, the DAS (108) uses speech recognition technology to process and capture information from the live conversation. More specifically, the DAS (108) uses the Speech Recognition Engine (114) to recognize the live conversation as text. Further, the DAS (108) is also configured to place the information captured from the live conversation into a particular context associated with a form or document actively in use by the operator.” Col. 4:3-13. The steps of the method are all performed by the document assistance system, with the questions being asked by an operator using an application with the DAS functionality. The only interaction of the user is with the operator over the phone. See Figure 1, which shows the interaction of the customer only with the operator and phone system.)
Claim 14 and claim 20 recite the same limitations as claim 7 and are rejected using the same reasoning described above.
Claims 5-6, 12-13, and 18-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over HUFF (US 7,907,705 B1) in view of LOPATA (US 2010/0153441 A1) and further in view of SEMENOVSKIY (US 2021/0281421 A1) and SWVIGARADOSS (US 2022/0075947 A1).
Regarding Claim 5, HUFF in view of LOPATA and SEMENOVSKIY teaches all the limitations of claim 1, on which claim 5 depends.
HUFF in view of LOPATA and SEMENOVSKIY does not teach wherein a non-human artificial intelligence agent asks the plurality of questions.
However, SWVIGARADOSS, which is directed to a chatbot generated from a form, teaches wherein a non-human artificial intelligence agent asks the plurality of questions. ( “A technique for automatically generating a conversation bot using an input document form is disclosed. Using a conversation bot, the requests of the input form document can be provided to a user via a chat interface. User responses to the requests can be captured to complete the corresponding response fields of the form. The original input document form is used to automatically generate and configure the conversation bot. The form document is analyzed to configure the conversation bot to ask a series of requests directed to collect user responses.” Paragraph 0022. “Once users access the conversation bot, they are presented with a chat interface for inputting form responses based on request prompts. Users can enter input responses via the conversation bot in response to requests for the requested fields of a digital form.” Paragraph 0037. A conversation bot, such as a virtual assistant or a chatbot, asks a user a plurality of questions, and the user’s answers are recorded onto a form used to generate the chatbot.)
Before the effective filing date of the invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the automatic completion of a form during a live conversation between a user and an operator taught by HUFF in view of LOPATA and SEMENOVSKIY by using a chatbot or other virtual assistant as the operator that asks the user the questions as taught by SWVIGARADOSS. Non-human artificial intelligence phone operators, as well as virtual assistants and chatbots, are well known in the art, especially for use by companies and organizations for customer service, and using a non-human phone operator instead of a human phone operator to ask the user the questions would have been a simple substitution that would have yielded predictable results. As suggested by SWVIGARADOSS (Paragraph 39), use of a chatbot for collecting form data would improve the efficiency of the data collection.
Claim 12 and claim 18 recite the same limitations as claim 5 and are rejected using the same reasoning described above.
Regarding Claim 6, HUFF in view of LOPATA, SEMENOVSKIY, and SWVIGARADOSS further teaches wherein the non-human artificial intelligence agent is a virtual assistant or a chatbot. (SWVIGARADOSS, “the disclosed conversation bot is a chat assistant, virtual assistant, agent, virtual agent, conversation agent, chat bot, messaging agent, and/or another similar interactive virtual agent” Paragraph 0027.)
The same reasoning to combine discussed in the rejection of claim 5 applies to claim 6.
Claim 13 and claim 19 recite the same limitations as claim 6 and are rejected using the same reasoning described above.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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 nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) 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 mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to RAMI RAFAT OKASHA whose telephone number is (571)272-0675. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 10-6 EST.
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/RAMI R OKASHA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2118
