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 .
Response to Arguments
Rejections under 35 USC§ 101 of claims 34 and 42 are withdrawn in light of Applicant’s amendments filed 11/05/2025. However, claims 34 and 42 are substantially identical to claims 24 and 35 respectively, therefore, the prior art rejections of claims 24 and 35 are incorporated herein. See Claim Rejections below.
Applicant’s arguments, see “Remarks”, filed 11/05/2025, with respect to the rejection(s) of claim(s) 24-28, 31-32, 35-40 under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of Hatton (US011587387B2).
Applicant asserts that there is no teaching in Zhao (CN104464079) of generating a first element template and a second element template for each manufacturing element on the same value document. Applicant further asserts that there is no teaching of multiple ROIs or multiple templates for each of a plurality of manufacturing elements of said denomination.
Examiner concedes the deficiency of Zhao that the prior art fails to provide multiple templates for a single manufacturing element. As for Applicant’s dispute of multiple ROIs, this argument pertains to Zhao’s reliance on ROIs as a means to facilitate template generation, and this element is therefore substantively immaterial to the claimed invention.
Additional readings from Hatton (US011587387B2), a reference also cited in the aforementioned last Non-Final Office Action, amend the deficiencies pointed out by Applicant. Updated grounds for rejection are provided in Claim Rejections below.
Examiner thanks applicant for pointing out the missing status of claim 43 from the last Non-Final Office Action. This was a clerical error, and the status of claim 43 would have been allowable. This status is upheld herein.
Claim Objections
Claim 35 is objected to for lack of clarification. The claim contains the language “by means of a method according to claim 24.” The definition and scope of “means” is unclear. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim 40 is objected to for ambiguity. The claim employs the language “and/or” multiple times, introducing uncertainty as to the claim’s scope. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action
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 24-28, 31-32, 34-40, 42, 44-46 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zhao in view of Hatton (US011587387B2).
Regarding claim 24, the grounds for rejection set forth in said last Non-Final Office Action are incorporated herein. Zhao fails to teach generating a first element template and a second element template for each manufacturing element on the same value document. However, Hatton amends this deficiency.
Hatton teaches an image processing system (110) that executes an image processing procedure on an image of a currency note (200) to generate one or more reference templates. This directly enables one of ordinary skill in the art to thereby provide a first element template and a second element template for each manufacturing element on the same value document. This is read in (Column 4, Line 47-58).
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See the aforementioned last Non-Final Office Action for motivation to incorporated Hatton.
Regarding the subsequent claims 25-28, 31-32, 35-40, 43, 44-46, the grounds for rejection set forth in said last Non-Final Office Action remain in effect and are incorporated herein. See above for motivation to include Hatton.
Regarding claims 34 and 42, these claims are substantially identical to claims 24 and 35. Therefore, the grounds for rejection of claims 24 and 35 are incorporated herein and applied to claims 34 and 42 respectively.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 29-30, and 43 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Contact
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MATTHEW JAMES BODNARK whose telephone number is (703)756-5378. The examiner can normally be reached 8a-5p.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Vu Le can be reached at (571) 272-7332. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/MATTHEW JAMES BODNARK/Examiner, Art Unit 2668
/VU LE/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2668