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 .
Notice for all Patent Application as subject to AIA
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.
RESPONSE TO REQUEST FOR CONTINUED EXAMINATION (RCE)
Amended claims 1-9, 13-15, and 18-20; and new claims 26-30 are pending and remain for further examination.
The New Grounds of Rejection
Applicant’s amendments and arguments with respect to claims 1-9, 13-15, and 18-20 and request for continued examination (RCE) filed on March 17, 2026 have been fully considered, but they are deemed to be moot in view of the new grounds of rejections. Applicant’s amendment necessitated the new modified rejections.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The text of those sections of title AIA 35 U.S.C. 103 code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office Action.
Claims 1, 5-9, 13-15, 18-20, 26, and 28-30 are rejected under AIA 35 U.S.C. 103 as being un-patentable over Davis et al (U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2010/0317899 A1) in view of Cheng et al (U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2013/0129162 A1).
As to claim 1, Davis et al disclose a mobile device (see figures 2-3) comprising: a fingerprint sensor; at least one memory; and at least one processor coupled with the at least one memory (figure 3, pars. 0029-0030, mobile device/card reader having fingerprint sensor, processor, and memory) and teach that configured to cause the mobile device to: receive, via the fingerprint sensor, a multi-touch gesture that includes a touch event; collect fingerprint data during the touch event; authenticate the multi-touch gesture based on a successful authentication of the fingerprint data (figures 3-4, pars. 0052-0053, authenticate the multi-touch gesture by comparing fingerprint candidate and fingerprint template); and in response to the multi-touch gesture being successfully authenticated, perform at least one action via the mobile device corresponding to the multi-touch gesture (figure 5, pars 0056 & 0061-0062, unlock the mobile device and launch the application associated with fingerprint in response to the multi-touch gesture being authenticated).
However, Davis et al do not teach that receive, via the fingerprint sensor, a multi-touch gesture that includes at least a first touch event and a second touch event; collect first fingerprint data during the first touch event and second fingerprint data during the second touch event; attempt to authenticate the first fingerprint data and the second fingerprint data, the multi-touch gesture being successfully authenticated if at least one of the first fingerprint data or the second fingerprint data is authenticated.
Cheng et al disclose a mobile device (see figure 2 & par. 0007, figure 4 par. 0031) comprising: a fingerprint sensor; at least one memory; and at least one processor coupled with the at least one memory (figure 4, pars. 0029-0031, mobile device having fingerprint sensor, processor, and memory) and teach that configured to cause the mobile device to receive, via the fingerprint sensor, a multi-touch gesture that includes at least a first touch event and a second touch event; collect first fingerprint data during the first touch event and second fingerprint data during the second touch event; attempt to authenticate the first fingerprint data and the second fingerprint data, the multi-touch gesture being successfully authenticated if at least one of the first fingerprint data or the second fingerprint data is authenticated (figure 5, pars. 0033-0036, figures 6-7, pars. 0040-0044 & 0046-0054, receiving a multi-touch gesture (touch events), collecting authentication data for the touch events, and authenticate the multi-touch gesture by comparing gesture and fingerprint with the registered gesture and fingerprint).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teaching of Cheng et al as stated above with the mobile device or method of Davis et al for receiving multi-touch events, collecting authentication data for the multi-touch events, and authenticate one of the multi-touch events because it would have improved security of the user of the mobile device and also increased the utilization of the mobile device and its’ applications.
As to claim 5, Cheng et al teach that the multi-touch gesture is a combination of touch events that includes at least one of: one or more tap events, one or more touch and hold events, one or more touch and swipe events, or one or more touch and rotate events (figure 12, par. 0059, example of user’s gestures).
As to claims 6-7, Davis et al teach that the processor is configured to cause the mobile device to initiate different device actions in response to different multi-touch gestures being received, the different multi-touch gestures including different types of touch events, wherein the multi-touch gesture corresponds to different device actions as performed by different fingers of a user (pars. 0065-0067, 0069-0070, & 0072-0073).
As to claim 8, Cheng et al teach that the processor is configured to cause the mobile device to receive a threshold number of individual touch events, and prevent a subsequent touch event from being included as part of the multi-touch gesture (pars. 0033-0035, figure 8, par. 0056).
As to claim 9, Davis et al teach that the processor is configured to cause the mobile device to impose a lockout of the fingerprint sensor in response to a threshold number of unsuccessful authentication attempts, the multi-touch gesture that includes multiple touch events corresponding to a single authentication attempt (figure 4, pars. 0051-0053).
As to claims 13-15, they are also rejected for the same reasons set forth to rejecting claims 1 & 6-9 above, since claims 13-15 are merely method of operations for the apparatus defined/claimed in the claims 1 & 6-9, and claims 13-15 also do not teach or define any new limitations than above rejected claims 1 & 6-9.
As to claims 18-19, they are also rejected for the same reasons set forth to rejecting claims 1 & 5-7 above, since claims 18-19 are merely method of operations for the apparatus defined/claimed in the claims 1 & 5-7, and claims 18-19 also do not teach or define any new limitations than above rejected claims 1 & 5-7.
As to claim 20, Davis et al teach that receiving additional touch events including at least a third touch event and a fourth touch event; identifying, based on third touch data collected during the third touch event and fourth touch data collected during the fourth touch event, a different multi-touch gesture of the plurality of multi-touch gestures; and performing at least one different device action via the mobile device corresponding to the different multi-touch gesture based on a successful authentication of at least one of third fingerprint data associated with the third touch event or fourth fingerprint data associated with the fourth touch event (pars. 0066-0067, 0069-0070, 0072-0073, & 0075-0076).
As to claim 26, , Davis et al teach that the at least one action includes a device action and an authentication action, both the device action and the authentication action are performed in response to the multi-touch gesture being successfully authenticated, and the device action is performed without performing the authentication action in response to an unsuccessful authentication attempt of the multi-touch gesture (figures 5-6, pars. 0055-0077).
As to claims 28-30, Cheng et al teach that the at least one action includes launching an application of the mobile device and performing an application specific action via the application; receiving and authenticating a different multi-touch gesture; in response to the different multi-touch gesture being authenticated, launching the application and performing a different application specific action via the application (figure 5, pars. 0032-0035, figures 12-13, pars. 0059-0060); and the application is an online payment application, the application specific action is an initiation of a payment request, and the different application specific action is an initiation of a transfer of funds (figures 9-11, pars. 0057-0058).
Claims 2-4 are rejected under AIA 35 U.S.C. 103 as being un-patentable over Davis et al (U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2010/0317899 A1) in view of Cheng et al (U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2013/0129162 A1), as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Humborstad et al (U.S. Patent No. 11,995,161 B2).
As to claims 2-3, Davis et al do not teach that the first touch event and the second touch event are received within a specified timeout period.
Humborstad et al teach that the first touch event and the second touch event are received within a specified timeout period (column 10 lines 40-56, column 11 lines 15-23, measuring a number of contacts with the sensor at a time period); and the specified timeout period defines a first duration of time during which the multi-touch gesture is to be completed; or a second duration of time during which consecutive individual touch events of the multi-touch gesture are to be received (column 11 lines 15-36, column 11 line 63 to column 12 line 12, column 16 lines 21-29, processer collecting and providing moving contacts with the sensor in the specific time periods).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teaching of Humborstad et al as stated above with the mobile device or method of Davis et al because it would have improved the efficiency of the fingerprint reader/sensor for the specific time periods and also increased the utilization of the mobile device and its’ applications.
As to claim 4, Humborstad et al teach that the processor is configured to cause the mobile device to receive, after the specified timeout period, a third touch event that is not included as part of the multi-touch gesture (column 10 lines 40-56, column 11 lines 15-36, column 11 line 63 to column 12 line 12, column 16 lines 21-29, measuring a number of contacts with the sensor at a specific time period).
Claim 27 is rejected under AIA 35 U.S.C. 103 as being un-patentable over Davis et al (U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2010/0317899 A1) in view of Cheng et al (U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2013/0129162 A1), as applied to claims 1 and 26 above, and further in view of Feng et al (U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2015/0199504 A1).
As to claim 27 However, neither Davis et al nor Cheng et al teaches that the device action is launching an application of the mobile device, and the authentication action is logging in to an account associated with the application.
Feng et al teach that the device action is launching an application of the mobile device, and the authentication action is logging in to an account associated with the application (figure 3, pars. 0032 & 0035-0036, logging in to a user account associated with the application).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teaching of Feng et al as stated above with the mobile device or method of Davis et al for logging into application/account in response to the multi-touch gesture being authenticated because it would have improved logging process faster and also increased the utilization of the mobile device and its’ applications.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s amendments with respect to the claims 1-9, 13-15, and 18-20 filed on March 17, 2026 have been fully considered but they are deemed to be moot in a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of new references. The examiner has attempted to answer (response) to the remarks (arguments) in the body of the Office Action (see new modified/updated rejection of the amended claims).
Additional References
The examiner as of general interest cites the following references.
Matthews et al, U.S. Patent No. 11,410,160 B2.
Xing, U.S. Patent No. 9,830,584 B2.
Content Information
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/BHARAT BAROT/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2453May 08, 2026
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