DETAILED ACTION
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 Objections
Claims 3, 10, and 17 are objected to because of the following informalities: The final text of the claims read “an increase of shape in either the first or the second one of the one or more objects causes a collision.” There is a minor grammatical issue here, and the claim should likely read “an increase of shape … that causes a collision”. Appropriate correction is required.
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 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (mental processes and mathematical relationships) without significantly more. Claim 8 recites:
An apparatus for generating geometric representations to be manufactured for two or more objects interacting with each other, the apparatus comprising: (this falls within the statutory categories of invention, but intended use in the preamble does not receive patentable weight. The link to manufacturing is merely generally linking the use of the exception to the technical field of manufacturing as per MPEP 2106.05(h))
a memory; a processing device operatively coupled to the memory, the processing device and the memory configured to: (generic computer components being invoked merely as tools to carry out the claimed task, equivalent to mere instructions to apply an exception as per MPEP 2106.05(f))
receive a first characterization of motions of a first one of the two or more objects; (receiving this data is insignificant extra-solution activity in the form of mere data gathering as per MPEP 2106.05(g). The data itself could be obtained by a person performing the mental process of observing details of an intended manufacturing, or alternatively is represented as sequence of numerical data and falls within the scope of mathematical relationships)
receive a second characterization of motions of a second one of the two or more objects associated with the first characterization of motions of the first one of the two or more objects; (receiving this data is insignificant extra-solution activity in the form of mere data gathering as per MPEP 2106.05(g). The data itself could be obtained by a person performing the mental process of observing details of an intended manufacturing, or alternatively is represented as sequence of numerical data and falls within the scope of mathematical relationships)
receive a respective design domain for each of the first and the second ones of the two or more objects, the respective design domain comprising at least a dimensional constraint; and (receiving this data is insignificant extra-solution activity in the form of mere data gathering as per MPEP 2106.05(g). The data itself could be obtained by a person performing the mental process of observing details of an intended manufacturing, or alternatively is represented as sequence of numerical data and falls within the scope of mathematical relationships)
perform, by a processing device and based on the first and the second characterizations of motions of the first and the second ones of the two or more objects and the design domain, topology optimizations for both the first and the second ones of the two or more objects to generate respective geometric representations that enable the first and the second characterizations of motions free from interference between the first and the second ones of the two or more objects, (a person can perform this mentally by evaluating and judging the system they have observed, alternatively this represents a mathematical algorithm performed on numerical data that falls within the scope of mathematical relationships)
wherein the topology optimizations include sensitivity fields augmented by gradients and local measures of potential collisions. (these are mathematical algorithms that fall within the scope of mathematical relationships, and a person could also perform these mentally by evaluating the equations with aid of pencil and paper. Note that no lower bound is presented on the complexity of the system, so extremely simplistic calculations for a minimal system would be within the scope of the claims and a person could reasonably perform the associated calculations of such a system.)
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. In particular, the claim only recites the following additional elements: 1) mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computer components (the processor/memory), 2) generally linking the use of the exception to the technical field of manufacturing, and 3) insignificant extra-solution activity in the form of mere data gathering (receiving data). The processor/memory is recited at a high-level of generality (i.e., as a generic processor/memory performing a generic computer function of executing instructions and storing data) such that it amounts no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component. Accordingly, this additional element does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because it does not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. Limitations that amount to merely indicating a field of use or technological environment in which to apply a judicial exception cannot integrate a judicial exception into a practical application. The specification that data is received is only tangentially linked to the calculation and analysis steps, and does not meaningfully limit the claim. The claim is directed to an abstract idea.
The claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. As discussed above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application, the additional element of using a processor/memory to perform the claimed steps amounts to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component. Mere instructions to apply an exception using a generic computer component cannot provide an inventive concept. Limitations that amount to merely indicating a field of use or technological environment in which to apply a judicial exception do not amount to significantly more than the exception itself. The addition of insignificant extra-solution activity does not amount to an inventive concept. The claim is not patent eligible.
Claims 1 and 15 are substantially similar to claim 8, and are rejected under the same grounds as those set forth above.
Dependent claims 2-7, 9-14, and 16-20 recite only further details that fall within the scope of mathematical algorithms, and these mathematical algorithms can be classified as mathematical relationships, and also mental processes as they could be performed mentally with aid of pencil and paper as discussed above for claim 8. They remain ineligible.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
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.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Mirzendehdel (Mirzendehdel, A. M., Behandish, M., & Nelaturi, S. (2020). Topology optimization with accessibility constraint for multi-axis machining. Computer-Aided Design, 122, 102825.) in view of Mirzendehdel (US 20210073349 A1) (herein after ‘349).
Regarding Claim 1:
Mirzendehdel teaches:
receiving a first characterization of motions of a first one of the two or more objects; (Fig. 1, The inputs are the shapes of initial design (e.g., the brackets shown above), stationary obstacles such as fixtures, moving objects including the entire tool assembly, and the available orientations.; Section 1.1, The notion of a configuration space (C-space) of relative 6D motions, i.e., group of rigid-body translations and rotations, is introduced to abstract collision predicates between two arbitrary 3D rigid bodies in relative motion to a point membership query against a 6D pointset,; Section 1.2, we present a generic definition of IMF that is usable for arbitrary shapes in 2D and 3D and motions including rotations; Section 1.3, for a given collection of cutting tool assemblies and fixtures (arbitrary shapes in 3D) and available motions including translations and rotations)
receiving a second characterization of motions of a second one of the two or more objects associated with the first characterization of motions of the first one of the two or more objects; (Fig. 1, The inputs are the shapes of initial design (e.g., the brackets shown above), stationary obstacles such as fixtures, moving objects including the entire tool assembly, and the available orientations.; Section 2.1.2, For objects in relative motion, the translational component results in a shift of function argument, turning the inner product into a convolution; examiner notes that the reference deals with objects in relative motion, and as such the motion of either object is characterized with respect to the other.; Fig. 21. Support bracket at 0.3 volume fraction for 5-axis milling machine with vise fixture; examiner notes Fig. 21 shows two objects that are the support bracket portion and the vise fixture portion.; See also Section 3.1, The accessibility constraint is defined using two cutting tool assemblies of nontrivial shapes, one with a thinner and another with a thicker cutting edge.; see also Section 2.1.4 which describes "multiple tool assemblies", each of which could be said to be an object)
receiving a respective design domain for each of the first and the second ones of the two or more objects, the respective design domain comprising at least a dimensional constraint; and (Abstract, We define an inaccessibility measure field (IMF) over the design domain; Section 1.2, Global constraints are widely used in TO and are typically expressed as a differentiable functional, for which a continuous sensitivity field can be computed at every point in the 3D design domain. We showed in [45] that local constraints can be directly incorporated into the sensitivity field as a penalty)
performing, by a processing device and based on the first and the second characterizations of motions of the first and the second ones of the two or more objects and the design domain, topology optimizations for both the first and the second ones of the two or more objects to generate respective geometric representations that enable the first and the second characterizations of motions free from interference between the first and the second ones of the two or more objects, (Abstract, We present a topology optimization (TO) framework to enable automated design of mechanical components while ensuring the result can be manufactured using multi-axis machining … We define an inaccessibility measure field (IMF) over the design domain to identify non-manufacturable features and quantify their contribution to non-manufacturability. The IMF is used to penalize the sensitivity field of performance objectives and constraints to prevent formation of inaccessible regions. Unlike existing discrete formulations, our IMF provides a continuous spatial field that is desirable for TO convergence.; Section 2.1.1, can be computed by sweeping (i.e., morphological dilation) of the cutter along the maximal collision-free motion)
Mirzendehdel does not teach in particular, but ‘349 teaches:
wherein the topology optimizations include sensitivity fields augmented by gradients and local measures of potential collisions. (¶181 Every test requires invoking the collision detection algorithm, and can be done in parallel; ¶187 a general strategy is proposed to deal with constraints that cannot be stated in a pointwise fashion, to guide gradient-descent optimization.; see also the following sections of Mirzendehdel: Section 2.2, the continuous IMF can be directly augmented into the sensitivity field to filter out the inaccessible regions of the design domain; Section 3.1, FEA is solved using conjugate gradients; Section 2.1.1, The accessible region ... can be computed by sweeping (i.e., morphological dilation) of the cutter along the maximal collision-free motion. The latter is obtained as the complement of C-obstacle in the C-space)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to apply the unsweep solver integration and gradient descent optimization of ‘349 to the topological optimization of Mirzendehdel, in order to better synthesize designs that satisfy performance criteria ('349, ¶3).
Regarding Claim 2:
Mirzendehdel does not teach in particular, but ‘349 teaches:
performing an unsweep operation in the respective design domain for each of the first and the second ones of the two or more objects; and (¶60 The third example, 765 shows the Unsweep solver 770 and the PareTO solver 780 called in parallel. The results of the Unsweep solver 770 and the PareTO solver 780 are then combined 785 as described in conjunction with FIG. 2.; ¶168 An Unsweep solver may be used to directly compute ...)
measuring potential collisions of solids, based on the first and the second characterizations of motions, locally and globally for a gradient-descent optimization. (¶181 Every test requires invoking the collision detection algorithm, and can be done in parallel; ¶187 a general strategy is proposed to deal with constraints that cannot be stated in a pointwise fashion, to guide gradient-descent optimization.)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to apply the unsweep solver integration and gradient descent optimization to the topological optimization of Mirzendehdel, in order to better synthesize designs that satisfy performance criteria ('349, ¶3).
Regarding Claim 3:
Mirzendehdel teaches:
generating the respective geometric representations in an incremental or iterative procedure for a subset of maximal pairs of collision-free solids corresponding to the first and the second ones of the two or more objects, (Section 2.1.1, computed by sweeping (i.e., morphological dilation) of the cutter along the maximal collision-free motion … obtained by sweeping the rotated cutter RK along the maximal collision-free translation; Section 2.1.1, we need a spatial field to penalize inaccessibility of different points within the candidate design ... to prevent the TO from violating accessibility at every iteration.)
Mirzendehdel does not teach in particular, but ‘349 teaches:
wherein the subset of maximal pairs of collision-free solids are conditioned upon an increase of shape in either the first or the second one of the one or more objects causes a collision. (¶244 At every outer-loop iteration, the maximal deflection increases due to removed material. The algorithm checks if the deflection constraint is violated and stops at the lightest possible solution.)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to apply the unsweep solver integration and gradient descent optimization to the topological optimization of Mirzendehdel, in order to better synthesize designs that satisfy performance criteria ('349, ¶3).
Regarding Claim 4:
Mirzendehdel does not teach in particular, but ‘349 teaches:
wherein the first and the second characterizations of motions comprises at least one of: a trajectory or a boundary of motions; a velocity of movements along the trajectory or within the boundary; a rate of rotation along the trajectory or within the boundary; or a causal relationship between the first characterization of motions and the second characterization of motions. (¶107 For example, it can be a curve segment or surface patch representing the 1D or 2D trajectory of a point under a given one- or two-parametric motion, respectively.; ¶164 can be computed as the union of all γ(x): =Mx=∪τEM τx, which represents the trajectory traced by the query point x∈Ω0 along the prescribed motion; See also Mirzendehdel Section 2.1.5, As the cutter’s boundary is sampled more densely, the IMF can only decrease in value due to the minimum operation in (13), and the set of secluded points ... grows in size.)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to apply the unsweep solver integration and gradient descent optimization to the topological optimization of Mirzendehdel, in order to better synthesize designs that satisfy performance criteria ('349, ¶3).
Regarding Claim 5:
Mirzendehdel does not teach in particular, but ‘349 teaches:
a parameter of a material aspect of the first or the second one of the one or more objects for determining deformation in the potential collisions; or (¶73 mapping a design (geometry and material properties) to different fields such as deformation, stress, and accessibility fields in accordance with embodiments described herein. Each field is evaluated against the constraints, whose satisfaction are captured by the binary predicates)
a parameter of a production aspect of the first or the second one of the one or more objects for determining manufacturability of the first or the second one of the one or more objects. (¶91 potentially in addition to fixed external factors such as boundary conditions, manufacturing process parameters, packaging envelope, operating conditions (e.g., motion in assembly), etc. The constraint is often evaluated in terms of a global property of an entire performance field )
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to apply the unsweep solver integration and gradient descent optimization to the topological optimization of Mirzendehdel, in order to better synthesize designs that satisfy performance criteria ('349, ¶3).
Regarding Claim 6:
Mirzendehdel teaches:
wherein the geometric representations of the first and the second ones of the one or more objects maintain a profile of contact in or during the first and the second characterizations of motions. (Section 2.1, there must exist a transformation ... that brings at least one point on the cutter (hereon called a sharp point) ... in contact with the query point, without incurring a volumetric collision between the objects in relative motion; Section 2.1.3, that the rigid transformation (R,t) brings the sharp point in contact with the query point; Section 2.1.4, we compute their combined IMF by applying another minimum operation over different tools to identify the tool(s) with the smallest volumetric interference at available orientations and sharp points:)
Regarding Claim 7:
Mirzendehdel teaches:
wherein the respective geometric representations comprise shapes that are: specific to one or more materials to be used, and (Section 3.1, we consider a simple cantilever beam example in 2D and 3D. The loading conditions are shown in Fig. 5. We use material properties of Stainless Steel with Young’s modulus of E = 270 GPa and Poisson ratio of v = 0.3.; Section 3.2, Next, let us consider the example of GE bracket shown in Fig. 10. The material is Titanium with elastic properties of E = 113.8 GPa and v = 0.34.)
Mirzendehdel does not teach in particular, but ‘349 teaches:
specific to manufacturing techniques for the one or more materials to be used, wherein the shapes are represented by data convertible to additive manufacturing instructions. (¶38 Light-weight, high-performance, and multi-material composite structures with complex geometry and material distribution can now be fabricated using various additive manufacturing (AM) processes.; ¶39 Hybrid manufacturing (combined AM and SM) requires more complicated logical reasoning; ¶73 mapping a design (geometry and material properties) to different fields such as deformation, stress, and accessibility fields in accordance with embodiments described herein; ¶74 local topological properties of 3D printed parts or to classify atomic units of manufacturing in hybrid (combined AM and SM) manufacturing.)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to apply the unsweep solver integration and gradient descent optimization to the topological optimization of Mirzendehdel, in order to better synthesize designs that satisfy performance criteria ('349, ¶3).
Regarding Claim 8:
Mirzendehdel teaches:
a memory; a processing device operatively coupled to the memory, the processing device and the memory configured to: (Section 3, All examples are run on a desktop machine with Intel® Core™i7-7820X CPU with 8 processors running at 4.5 GHz, 32 GB of host memory, and an NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1080 GPU with 2560 CUDA cores and 8 GB of device memory.)
receive a first characterization of motions of a first one of the two or more objects; (Fig. 1, The inputs are the shapes of initial design (e.g., the brackets shown above), stationary obstacles such as fixtures, moving objects including the entire tool assembly, and the available orientations.; Section 1.1, The notion of a configuration space (C-space) of relative 6D motions, i.e., group of rigid-body translations and rotations, is introduced to abstract collision predicates between two arbitrary 3D rigid bodies in relative motion to a point membership query against a 6D pointset,; Section 1.2, we present a generic definition of IMF that is usable for arbitrary shapes in 2D and 3D and motions including rotations; Section 1.3, for a given collection of cutting tool assemblies and fixtures (arbitrary shapes in 3D) and available motions including translations and rotations)
receive a second characterization of motions of a second one of the two or more objects associated with the first characterization of motions of the first one of the two or more objects; (Fig. 1, The inputs are the shapes of initial design (e.g., the brackets shown above), stationary obstacles such as fixtures, moving objects including the entire tool assembly, and the available orientations.; Section 2.1.2, For objects in relative motion, the translational component results in a shift of function argument, turning the inner product into a convolution; examiner notes that the reference deals with objects in relative motion, and as such the motion of either object is characterized with respect to the other.; Fig. 21. Support bracket at 0.3 volume fraction for 5-axis milling machine with vise fixture; examiner notes Fig. 21 shows two objects that are the support bracket portion and the vise fixture portion.; See also Section 3.1, The accessibility constraint is defined using two cutting tool assemblies of nontrivial shapes, one with a thinner and another with a thicker cutting edge.; see also Section 2.1.4 which describes "multiple tool assemblies", each of which could be said to be an object )
receive a respective design domain for each of the first and the second ones of the two or more objects, the respective design domain comprising at least a dimensional constraint; and (Abstract, We define an inaccessibility measure field (IMF) over the design domain; Section 1.2, Global constraints are widely used in TO and are typically expressed as a differentiable functional, for which a continuous sensitivity field can be computed at every point in the 3D design domain. We showed in [45] that local constraints can be directly incorporated into the sensitivity field as a penalty)
perform, by a processing device and based on the first and the second characterizations of motions of the first and the second ones of the two or more objects and the design domain, topology optimizations for both the first and the second ones of the two or more objects to generate respective geometric representations that enable the first and the second characterizations of motions free from interference between the first and the second ones of the two or more objects, (Abstract, We present a topology optimization (TO) framework to enable automated design of mechanical components while ensuring the result can be manufactured using multi-axis machining … We define an inaccessibility measure field (IMF) over the design domain to identify non-manufacturable features and quantify their contribution to non-manufacturability. The IMF is used to penalize the sensitivity field of performance objectives and constraints to prevent formation of inaccessible regions. Unlike existing discrete formulations, our IMF provides a continuous spatial field that is desirable for TO convergence.; Section 2.1.1, can be computed by sweeping (i.e., morphological dilation) of the cutter along the maximal collision-free motion)
Mirzendehdel does not teach in particular, but ‘349 teaches:
wherein the topology optimizations include sensitivity fields augmented by gradients and local measures of potential collisions. (¶181 Every test requires invoking the collision detection algorithm, and can be done in parallel; ¶187 a general strategy is proposed to deal with constraints that cannot be stated in a pointwise fashion, to guide gradient-descent optimization.; see also the following sections of Mirzendehdel: Section 2.2, the continuous IMF can be directly augmented into the sensitivity field to filter out the inaccessible regions of the design domain; Section 3.1, FEA is solved using conjugate gradients; Section 2.1.1, The accessible region ... can be computed by sweeping (i.e., morphological dilation) of the cutter along the maximal collision-free motion. The latter is obtained as the complement of C-obstacle in the C-space)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to apply the unsweep solver integration and gradient descent optimization of ‘349 to the topological optimization of Mirzendehdel, in order to better synthesize designs that satisfy performance criteria ('349, ¶3).
Regarding Claims 9-14:
Claims 9-14 are substantially similar to claims 2-7 respectively and are rejected under the same grounds as those set forth above for claims 2-7.
Regarding Claim 15:
Mirzendehdel teaches:
receive a first characterization of motions of a first one of the two or more objects; (Fig. 1, The inputs are the shapes of initial design (e.g., the brackets shown above), stationary obstacles such as fixtures, moving objects including the entire tool assembly, and the available orientations.; Section 1.1, The notion of a configuration space (C-space) of relative 6D motions, i.e., group of rigid-body translations and rotations, is introduced to abstract collision predicates between two arbitrary 3D rigid bodies in relative motion to a point membership query against a 6D pointset,; Section 1.2, we present a generic definition of IMF that is usable for arbitrary shapes in 2D and 3D and motions including rotations; Section 1.3, for a given collection of cutting tool assemblies and fixtures (arbitrary shapes in 3D) and available motions including translations and rotations)
receive a second characterization of motions of a second one of the two or more objects associated with the first characterization of motions of the first one of the two or more objects; (Fig. 1, The inputs are the shapes of initial design (e.g., the brackets shown above), stationary obstacles such as fixtures, moving objects including the entire tool assembly, and the available orientations.; Section 2.1.2, For objects in relative motion, the translational component results in a shift of function argument, turning the inner product into a convolution; examiner notes that the reference deals with objects in relative motion, and as such the motion of either object is characterized with respect to the other.; Fig. 21. Support bracket at 0.3 volume fraction for 5-axis milling machine with vise fixture; examiner notes Fig. 21 shows two objects that are the support bracket portion and the vise fixture portion.; See also Section 3.1, The accessibility constraint is defined using two cutting tool assemblies of nontrivial shapes, one with a thinner and another with a thicker cutting edge.; see also Section 2.1.4 which describes "multiple tool assemblies", each of which could be said to be an object)
receive a respective design domain for each of the first and the second ones of the two or more objects, the respective design domain comprising at least a dimensional constraint; and (Abstract, We define an inaccessibility measure field (IMF) over the design domain; Section 1.2, Global constraints are widely used in TO and are typically expressed as a differentiable functional, for which a continuous sensitivity field can be computed at every point in the 3D design domain. We showed in [45] that local constraints can be directly incorporated into the sensitivity field as a penalty)
perform, by a processing device and based on the first and the second characterizations of motions of the first and the second ones of the two or more objects and the design domain, topology optimizations for both the first and the second ones of the two or more objects to generate respective geometric representations that enable the first and the second characterizations of motions free from interference between the first and the second ones of the two or more objects, (Abstract, We present a topology optimization (TO) framework to enable automated design of mechanical components while ensuring the result can be manufactured using multi-axis machining … We define an inaccessibility measure field (IMF) over the design domain to identify non-manufacturable features and quantify their contribution to non-manufacturability. The IMF is used to penalize the sensitivity field of performance objectives and constraints to prevent formation of inaccessible regions. Unlike existing discrete formulations, our IMF provides a continuous spatial field that is desirable for TO convergence.; Section 2.1.1, can be computed by sweeping (i.e., morphological dilation) of the cutter along the maximal collision-free motion)
Mirzendehdel does not teach in particular, but ‘349 teaches:
wherein the topology optimizations include sensitivity fields augmented by gradients and local measures of potential collisions. (¶181 Every test requires invoking the collision detection algorithm, and can be done in parallel; ¶187 a general strategy is proposed to deal with constraints that cannot be stated in a pointwise fashion, to guide gradient-descent optimization.; see also the following sections of Mirzendehdel: Section 2.2, the continuous IMF can be directly augmented into the sensitivity field to filter out the inaccessible regions of the design domain; Section 3.1, FEA is solved using conjugate gradients; Section 2.1.1, The accessible region ... can be computed by sweeping (i.e., morphological dilation) of the cutter along the maximal collision-free motion. The latter is obtained as the complement of C-obstacle in the C-space)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to apply the unsweep solver integration and gradient descent optimizationof ‘349 to the topological optimization of Mirzendehdel, in order to better synthesize designs that satisfy performance criteria ('349, ¶3).
Regarding Claims 16-20:
Claims 16-20 are substantially similar to claims 2-6 respectively and are rejected under the same grounds as those set forth above for claims 2-6.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to BIJAN MAPAR whose telephone number is (571)270-3674. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Thursday, 11:00-8:30.
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/BIJAN MAPAR/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2189
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