DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
1. 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 Claims
2. 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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 12/09/2025 has been entered.
3. Claims 1-4, 6, 8-11, and 13 are currently pending and are rejected for the reasons set forth below.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
4. 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.
5. 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 of this title, 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.
6. 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.
7. Claims 1-4, 6, 8-11, and 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hurley (U.S. Pub. No. 2015/0095219), hereinafter, “Hurley”, in view of Petrou et al. (U.S. Pub. No. 2013/0179303), hereinafter, “Petrou”.
Claim 1 –
Hurley discloses:
a method for enabling communication between electronic devices using a printer application, the method comprising (Hurley [0006], “a method may include providing an identifier of a payment electronic device to a merchant subsystem for funding a transaction” and Figure 1):
detecting, by a first electronic device, a physical connection with a second electronic device via a Universal Serial Bus (USB) interface, wherein the connection is detected by a printer application installed in the first electronic device (Hurley [0049], [0053], “Online resource 113 may be a third party application managed by merchant subsystem 200, an internet browser pointed at a site managed by a merchant of merchant subsystem 200, a telephone/e-mail/text messaging application fostering a communication connection between device 100 and an entity of merchant subsystem 200, and/or any other suitable device capability for fostering any suitable online communication connection between device 100 and an entity of merchant subsystem 200 … access SSD 154b may be at least partially provisioned on a secure element of NFC component 120 of electronic device 100 directly from commercial entity subsystem 400 (e.g., as access data 652 via communication path 65 between server 410 of commercial entity subsystem 400 and communications component 106 of device 100, which may then be passed to NFC component 120 from communications component 106 (e.g., via bus 118))” and Figures 5, 6);
determining, by the printer application in the first electronic device, a USB protocol-level device identifier of the second electronic device when the second electronic device is connected to the first electronic device (Hurley [0041], “in addition to identifying the payment device identification data received at step 502, the transaction request data communicated from merchant subsystem 200 to commercial entity subsystem 400 (e.g., via path 85) may include a merchant identifier that may identify the particular merchant sending the data, a transaction identifier that may identify the particular purchase transaction to be financed, one or more pieces of information specific to that transaction” and Figure 5);
performing, by the printer application in the first electronic device, one of: configuration of the first electronic device to be in a host mode and the second electronic device to be in an accessory mode when the device identifier of the second electronic device matches with a device identifier list of the printer application, and prevention of the configuration when the device identifier of the second electronic device fails to match with the device identifier list of the printer application (Hurley [0022], “electronic device 100 may include a processor 102, a communications component 106, and/or a near field communication ("NFC") component 120. NFC component 120 may include a secure element that may be configured to provide a tamper-resistant platform (e.g., as a single or multiple chip secure microcontroller) that may be capable of securely hosting applications and their confidential and cryptographic data (e.g., credential applets and associated credential keys, such as an access key 155a and a credential key 155a', and/or an issuer security domain ("ISD") key 156k” and Figure 1); and
sending, by the printer application in the first electronic device, an Android Open Accessory (AOA) command to the second electronic device for enabling communication between a billing application in the first electronic device and the second electronic device (Hurley [0049], “Online resource 113 may be a third party application managed by merchant subsystem 200, an internet browser pointed at a site managed by a merchant of merchant subsystem 200, a telephone/e-mail/text messaging application fostering a communication connection between device 100 and an entity of merchant subsystem 200, and/or any other suitable device capability for fostering any suitable online communication connection between device 100 and an entity of merchant subsystem 200” and Figure 5)
Hurley do not explicitly disclose:
[[wherein the USB protocol-level device identifier comprises a Product Identifier (PID) and Vendor Identifier (VID)]]
Petrou disclose [[wherein the USB protocol-level device identifier comprises a Product Identifier (PID) and Vendor Identifier (VID)]] (See at least Petrou [0021], “If one or more products were successfully indentified from the media data, vendor search engine 138 further identifies product vendor information to send to the user of the mobile client device; said vendor information may identify online vendors and/or vendors proximate to the location of mobile client device 110 (i.e., based on location data received from location data module 124)”, see also Figure 1). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method of Hurley to include the USB protocol-level device identifier of a Product Identifier (PID) and Vendor Identifier (VID) as taught by Petrou, in order to communicate between a user device and a vendor device (see Petrou Paragraphs [0021], Figure 1).
Claim 2 –
Hurley/Petrou disclose the method as claimed in claim 1, as shown above.
Hurley further discloses:
wherein the second electronic device is an Android device (Hurley [0038], “a specific example of electronic device 100 may be a handheld electronic device, such as an iPhone.TM., where housing 101 may allow access to various input components 110a-110i, various output components 112a-112c, and various I/O components 114a-114d through which device 100 and a user and/or an ambient environment may interface with each other” and Figure 4).
Claim 3 –
Hurley/Petrou disclose the method as claimed in claim 1, as shown above.
Hurley further discloses:
wherein the first electronic device is an electronic device with a Window Operating System (Hurley [0029], “processor 102 may be used to run one or more applications, such as an application 103 and/or an application 113. As one example, application 103 may be an operating system application while application 113 may be a third party application (e.g., an application associated with a merchant of merchant subsystem 200)” and Figure 2).
Claim 4 –
Hurley/Petrou disclose the method as claimed in claim 1, as shown above.
Hurley further discloses:
wherein the second electronic device is a Point-Of- Sale terminal (Hurley [0035], “processor 102 of device 100 may be configured to run a device application 103 that may communicate information with a merchant application 113 of processor 102 as well as secure element 145, an I/O interface component 114a (e.g., for receiving I/O input data 115i and/or for transmitting I/O output data 115o), and/or communications component 106” and Figure 3).
Claim 6 –
Hurley/Petrou disclose the method as claimed in claim 1, as shown above.
Hurley further discloses:
wherein sending the AOA command to the second electronic device further comprises: receiving, by the printer application in the first electronic device, one of a file or an invoice from a merchant billing application installed on the first electronic device; and sending, by the printer application in the first electronic device, one of the file or the invoice to the second electronic device (Hurley [0085], “continuing with the restaurant example, when a user enters a restaurant as detected by the user's payment device 100, payment device 100 may share its payment device identifier along with a picture of its user, such that when the merchant restaurant wants to invoice a particular user for services it has been provided at that merchant restaurant, the merchant restaurant may identify the picture of that user as provided by device 100 and then know to initiate process 600 using the payment device identifier associated with that picture (e.g., at step 612 by sending commercial entity subsystem 400 appropriate transaction request data 662 including that payment device identifier) without having to ask the user for a payment device identifier)” and Figures 1, 6).
Claim 8 –
Hurley discloses:
a system for enabling communication between electronic devices using a printer application, the system comprising: a first electronic device, wherein a printer application is installed in the first electronic device; a second electronic device; wherein the printer application in the first electronic device is configured to (Hurley [0006], “a method may include providing an identifier of a payment electronic device to a merchant subsystem for funding a transaction” and Figure 1):
detect, by a first electronic device, a physical connection with a second electronic device via a Universal Serial Bus (USB) interface, wherein the connection is detected by a printer application installed in the first electronic device (Hurley [0049], [0053], “Online resource 113 may be a third party application managed by merchant subsystem 200, an internet browser pointed at a site managed by a merchant of merchant subsystem 200, a telephone/e-mail/text messaging application fostering a communication connection between device 100 and an entity of merchant subsystem 200, and/or any other suitable device capability for fostering any suitable online communication connection between device 100 and an entity of merchant subsystem 200 … access SSD 154b may be at least partially provisioned on a secure element of NFC component 120 of electronic device 100 directly from commercial entity subsystem 400 (e.g., as access data 652 via communication path 65 between server 410 of commercial entity subsystem 400 and communications component 106 of device 100, which may then be passed to NFC component 120 from communications component 106 (e.g., via bus 118))” and Figures 5, 6);
determine, by the printer application in the first electronic device, a USB protocol-level device identifier of the second electronic device when the second electronic device is connected to the first electronic device (Hurley [0041], “in addition to identifying the payment device identification data received at step 502, the transaction request data communicated from merchant subsystem 200 to commercial entity subsystem 400 (e.g., via path 85) may include a merchant identifier that may identify the particular merchant sending the data, a transaction identifier that may identify the particular purchase transaction to be financed, one or more pieces of information specific to that transaction” and Figure 5);
perform, by the printer application in the first electronic device, one of: configuration of the first electronic device to be in a host mode and the second electronic device to be in an accessory mode when the device identifier of the second electronic device matches with a device identifier list of the printer application, and prevention of the configuration when the device identifier of the second electronic device fails to match with the device identifier list of the printer application (Hurley [0022], “electronic device 100 may include a processor 102, a communications component 106, and/or a near field communication ("NFC") component 120. NFC component 120 may include a secure element that may be configured to provide a tamper-resistant platform (e.g., as a single or multiple chip secure microcontroller) that may be capable of securely hosting applications and their confidential and cryptographic data (e.g., credential applets and associated credential keys, such as an access key 155a and a credential key 155a', and/or an issuer security domain ("ISD") key 156k” and Figure 1); and
send an Android Open Accessory (AOA) command to the second electronic device for enabling communication between a billing application in the first electronic device and the second electronic device (Hurley [0049], “Online resource 113 may be a third party application managed by merchant subsystem 200, an internet browser pointed at a site managed by a merchant of merchant subsystem 200, a telephone/e-mail/text messaging application fostering a communication connection between device 100 and an entity of merchant subsystem 200, and/or any other suitable device capability for fostering any suitable online communication connection between device 100 and an entity of merchant subsystem 200” and Figure 5)
Hurley do not explicitly disclose:
[[wherein the USB protocol-level device identifier comprises a Product Identifier (PID) and Vendor Identifier (VID)]]
Petrou disclose [[wherein the USB protocol-level device identifier comprises a Product Identifier (PID) and Vendor Identifier (VID)]] (See at least Petrou [0021], “If one or more products were successfully indentified from the media data, vendor search engine 138 further identifies product vendor information to send to the user of the mobile client device; said vendor information may identify online vendors and/or vendors proximate to the location of mobile client device 110 (i.e., based on location data received from location data module 124)”, see also Figure 1). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the system of Hurley to include the USB protocol-level device identifier of a Product Identifier (PID) and Vendor Identifier (VID) as taught by Petrou, in order to communicate between a user device and a vendor device (see Petrou Paragraphs [0021], Figure 1).
Claim 9 –
Hurley/Petrou disclose the system as claimed in claim 8, as shown above.
Hurley further discloses:
wherein the second electronic device is an Android device (Hurley [0038], “a specific example of electronic device 100 may be a handheld electronic device, such as an iPhone.TM., where housing 101 may allow access to various input components 110a-110i, various output components 112a-112c, and various I/O components 114a-114d through which device 100 and a user and/or an ambient environment may interface with each other” and Figure 4).
Claim 10 –
Hurley/Petrou disclose the system as claimed in claim 8, as shown above.
Hurley further discloses:
wherein the first electronic device is an electronic device with a Window Operating System (Hurley [0029], “processor 102 may be used to run one or more applications, such as an application 103 and/or an application 113. As one example, application 103 may be an operating system application while application 113 may be a third party application (e.g., an application associated with a merchant of merchant subsystem 200)” and Figure 2).
Claim 11 –
Hurley/Petrou disclose the system as claimed in claim 8, as shown above.
Hurley further discloses:
wherein the second electronic device is a Point-Of- Sale terminal (Hurley [0035], “processor 102 of device 100 may be configured to run a device application 103 that may communicate information with a merchant application 113 of processor 102 as well as secure element 145, an I/O interface component 114a (e.g., for receiving I/O input data 115i and/or for transmitting I/O output data 115o), and/or communications component 106” and Figure 3).
Claim 13 –
Hurley/Petrou disclose the system as claimed in claim 8, as shown above.
Hurley further discloses:
receive one of a file or an invoice from a merchant billing application installed on the first electronic device; and send one of the file or the invoice to the second electronic device (Hurley [0085], “continuing with the restaurant example, when a user enters a restaurant as detected by the user's payment device 100, payment device 100 may share its payment device identifier along with a picture of its user, such that when the merchant restaurant wants to invoice a particular user for services it has been provided at that merchant restaurant, the merchant restaurant may identify the picture of that user as provided by device 100 and then know to initiate process 600 using the payment device identifier associated with that picture (e.g., at step 612 by sending commercial entity subsystem 400 appropriate transaction request data 662 including that payment device identifier) without having to ask the user for a payment device identifier)” and Figures 1, 6).
Response to Applicant’s Arguments
8. 35 U.S.C. §101 Rejections: Applicant’s arguments with respect to amended claims 1-4, 6, 8-11, and 13 that are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 have been considered and they are persuasive (See Applicant Arguments/Remarks Pages 1-9).
Examiner hereby withdraws the Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101 of amended claims 1-4, 6, 8-11, and 13 because the amended claim limitations of “performing, by the printer application in the first electronic device, one of: configuration of the first electronic device to be in a host mode and the second electronic device to be in an accessory mode when the device identifier of the second electronic device matches with a device identifier list of the printer application, and prevention of the configuration when the device identifier of the second electronic device fails to match with the device identifier list of the printer application; and sending, by the printer application in the first electronic device, an Android Open Accessory (AOA) command to the second electronic device for enabling communication between a billing application in the first electronic device and the second electronic device, wherein, when the configuration is prevented, issuance of the AOA command is inhibited” integrate the abstract idea into a practical application of reconfiguring physical states which includes the conditional mode configuration and the AOA command issuance for enabling communication between electronic devices using a printer application [See representative independent claims 1 and 8]. Also, the same reasons of 35 USC § 101 apply to dependent claims (2-4, 6) for dependent from independent claim 1 and dependent claims (9-11, 13) for dependent from independent claim 8 since they include the limitations of independent claims 1 and 8.
9. 35 U.S.C. §102 Rejections: Applicant’s arguments with respect to amended claims 1-14 that are rejected 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Hurley (U.S. Pub. No. 2015/0095219), hereinafter, “Hurley”, have been considered but are moot in view of the new ground(s) of rejection (See Applicant Arguments/Remarks Pages 9-24).
Examiner notes that the new prior art Petrou teach the amended claim limitations of independent claims 1 and 8 “wherein the USB protocol-level device identifier comprises a Product Identifier (PID) and Vendor Identifier (VID)” as in (See at least Petrou [0021], “If one or more products were successfully identified from the media data, vendor search engine 138 further identifies product vendor information to send to the user of the mobile client device; said vendor information may identify online vendors and/or vendors proximate to the location of mobile client device 110 (i.e., based on location data received from location data module 124)”, see also Figure 1). See details of Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103 of amended claims 1-4, 6, 8-11, and 13 in the section above.
Relevant Prior Art
10. The prior art made of record and not relied upon are considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
Thomas (U.S. Pub. No. 2007/0221726) teaches system and method for registration of an electronic device.
Brown et al. (U.S. Pub. No 2015/0348009) teach user device enabling access to payment information in response to mechanical input detection.
Conclusion
11. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Liz Nguyen whose telephone number is (571) 272-5414. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday to Friday 8:00 A.M to 5:00 P.M.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Matthew Gart, can be reached on (571) 272-3955. 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 Center system (visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative or access to the automated information system, call (800) 786-9199 (USA or CANADA) or (571) 272-1000.
/LIZ P NGUYEN/
Examiner, Art Unit 3696
/MATTHEW S GART/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3696