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 .
Detail Action
2. This office action is response to the application filed on . Claims 16, 18, 20, and 29 are pending in this communication.
Election/Restrictions
3. Claims 19,21-28,30-31 withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected Group 2-9, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Election was made without traverse in the reply filed on 06/02/2025.
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
4. A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 03/05/2026 has been entered.
Response to Amendment
5. This is in response to the amendments filed on 03/05/2026. Claims 16 and 29 have been amended. Claims 16, 18, 20, and 29 are currently pending and have been considered below.
Response to Arguments
6. Applicant's arguments with respect to claim(s) 16, 18, 20, and 29 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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.
7. Claims 16,18, 20 and 29 are rejected under AIA 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wrage et al. (US 20060177106 A1) also in view of Nada et al. (US 20150043792 A1) and further in view of Edvardsson et al. (US 20200120882 A1)
Regarding Claim 16:
Wrage discloses:
a. A method (Para.0021; “a method for authenticating a user based upon a record stored within the …. database”) comprising:
recording, by one or more biometric sensors, current biometric features of a person, wherein the one or more biometric sensors is configured for receiving digital information from a mobile user device of the person; (FIG.2/Para.0031, Para.0030; “a user presents biometric information to a ….. biometric optical scanner…. biometric information is captured …..resulting in biometric data…”, “a …. template, for instance, a fingerprint template, for use in matching of biometric information captured for user authentication”)
comparing, by a matching server, currently recorded biometric features of the person with prestored biometric features of all enrolled persons (Para.0033, Para.0031, Para.0005; “the user provides biometric information ….. that is … compared against registration template data within the …. record”, “The biometric information ….provided to a server…..the biometric data is verified against each of the templates …. corresponding to the …. biometric information”, “system accepts unique biometric information from a user and identifies the user by matching the information against information belonging to registered users of the system”) …..and signaling, by the matching server, positive authentication in case of a match; (Para.0031; “On the server, the biometric data is verified against each of the templates”)
b. …..upon request by the person, sending, by the mobile user device of the person, an ….. identifier of the person via a communication link between the mobile user device and the respective one or more biometric sensors to the matching server for selecting prestored biometric features of the person, (Para.0031, Claim.5, Para.0030; “a user presents biometric information to ….. a biometric optical scanner. The biometric information is captured and preprocessed ….. then provided to a server”, ”the biometric information comprises a fingerprint”, ”template, for instance, a fingerprint template, for use in matching of biometric information captured for user authentication. Within each record is stored user identifier information….”) wherein the …. identifier was assigned to the person ….. and associated with the prestored biometric features of the person; (Para.0033, Para.0021, Para.0030; “user provides biometric information that is …..compared against registration template data within the unique record”, “authenticating a user based upon a record stored”, “a plurality of records … having a …..template, for instance, a fingerprint template….. Within each record is stored user identifier…..”) and
c. selecting, by the matching server, prestored biometric features of the person based on the ….. identifier received from the mobile user device and comparing, by the matching server, the currently recorded biometric features of the person with selected prestored biometric features of the person, (Para.0038, Para.0030; “A determination is made whether the selected record (e.g. fingerprint data) matches with any of the records in the ….. database”, “a plurality of records …. each having a …. fingerprint template, for use in matching of biometric information captured for user authentication. Within each record is stored user identifier information”) …… and signaling, by the matching server, positive authentication in case of successful verification, wherein successful verification occurs when the currently recorded biometric features of the person match the selected biometric features of the person. (Para.0056; “The fingerprint image is processed to extract ….. feature ….for comparison with each biometric template …. in order to find a match. For each ….. biometric template, the feature data is compared with template data stored ….When a match is found….. a unique record relating to the provided biometric information. …. authorizing or identifying of the individual. When no match is found …the individual is not authorized”)
however, Wrage does not explicitly disclose;
a. …..comparing…. biometric features of the person with ….. biometric features of ….. persons while applying one or more identifying acceptance tolerances,
b. …..the …. identifier was assigned to the person during previous enrollment of the person……
c. …… adjusting the one or more identifying acceptance tolerances to a verifying acceptance tolerance, applying the verifying acceptance tolerance…..
In an analogous reference Nada discloses;
a. …..comparing, ….. biometric features of the person with …. biometric features of ……. persons while applying one or more identifying acceptance tolerances, (Para.0034, Para.0004, Para.0066, Para.0037; “authentication accuracy that new and old biometric information are derived from the same person with accuracy …..”, “new and old biometric information are biometric information derived from the same person …. such as ….for automatically registering new biometric information in a biometric authentication device based on multiple numbers of times of authentication results….. based on ….relation between a fingerprint image and a palm image”, “creates new registration data by adding vein patterns extracted from new biometric information to …. existing biometric information”, “existing biometric information is a fingerprint, and new biometric information is a palm vein”)
b. …..the …… identifier was assigned to the person during previous enrollment of the person……(Para.0056, Para.0066, Para.0042; “an authentication successful result that the user of the authentication data is an already registered regular user”, “creates new registration data by adding vein patterns extracted from new biometric information to already registered existing biometric information”, “a fingerprint image ….. as existing biometric information, and …. a palm vein image as new biometric information”)
c. …… adjusting the one or more identifying acceptance tolerances to a verifying acceptance tolerance, applying the verifying acceptance tolerance, (Para.0048, Para.0066; “authentication accuracy may be improved by adding new biometric information to existing biometric information… adding a double registration …. performed 1:N authentication in which the registration data of each user is matched with all other registered data….”, “creates new registration data by adding vein patterns extracted from new biometric information to already registered existing biometric information”)
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art to modify Wrage’s method for authenticating a user based upon a record stored within the database by enhancing Wrage’s method to include Nada’s method for determining whether or not existing biometric information and new biometric information are derived from the same person.
The motivation: in addition to an already-registered biometric information, when users register and use new biometric information, it improves the rate of handling users. Also, security is increased by confirming that the person inputting biometric information to be newly registered is the same person as the registrant of registered biometric information.
however, Wrage in view of Nada does not explicitly disclose
b. ……in case of no positive authentication …., an anonymous identifier of the ….. wherein the anonymous identifier was assigned to the …
c. …. features of the …. based on the anonymous identifier received from the mobile user device…….
In an analogous reference Edvardsson discloses
b. in case of no positive authentication……..an anonymous identifier of the ….. wherein the anonymous identifier was assigned to the……. (Para.0121, Para.0007; “an authentication failure of the identification information for the log …. categorized as being “unidentified” and may not be processed until its identification information is authorized”, “to authenticate the identification information for the log by comparing features of the captured …. image …. to features …..” an authentication failure of the identification information for the log categorized as being “unidentified” is construed as ‘in case of no positive authentication……..an anonymous identifier of the ….. wherein the anonymous identifier was assigned to the……. ‘)
c. …. features of the …. based on the anonymous identifier received from the mobile user device……. (disclosed above)
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art to modify Wrage in view of Nada’s method for authenticating a user based upon a record stored within the database by enhancing Wrage in view of Nada’s method to include Edvardsson’s method of managing identification information for a log.
The motivation: it’s important to minimize a number of unidentified and off-the-record logs in order to detect intrusions and reconstruct events after incidents. Also, it helps to prevent unauthorized access attempts or track changes made to critical files.
Regarding claims 18 and 20, the anonymous identifier is disclosed above.
the …. identifier in Wrage comes from a server in an encrypted form (Para.0048, Para.0035; “the biometric identification …. system …. encodes …..biometry fingerprint template information”, “fingerprint templates stored within a server”).
With respect to independent claim 29, a corresponding reasoning was given earlier in this section with respect to claim 16.; therefore, claim 29 rejected, for similar reasons, under the grounds as set forth for claim 16.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SAYEDA SALMA NAHAR whose telephone number is (703)756-4609. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 12:00 PM to 6:00 PM EST.
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/SAYEDA SALMA NAHAR/Examiner, Art Unit 2435
/BEEMNET W DADA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2435
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