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 AMENDMENT
Amended claims 1-9, 13-15, and 18-20; and new claims 21-25 are pending and remain for further examination.
The New Grounds of Rejection
Applicant’s amendments and arguments with respect to the claims 1-20 filed on September 09, 2025 have been fully considered. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of new references. Applicant’s amendment necessitated the new grounds of rejection.
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, and 18-25 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) and further in view of Feng et al (U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2015/0199504 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 authenticated, launch an application of the mobile device corresponding to the multi-touch gesture (figure 5, pars 0056 & 0061-0062, unlock the mobile device and launch the device application 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; authenticate the multi-touch gesture based on a successful authentication of at least one of the first fingerprint data or the second fingerprint data.
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; authenticate the multi-touch gesture based on a successful authentication of at least one of the first fingerprint data or the second fingerprint data (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.
However, neither Davis et al nor Cheng et al teaches that in response to the multi-touch gesture being authenticated, login to an account associated with the launched application.
Feng et al teach that in response to the multi-touch gesture being authenticated, login to an account associated with the launched application (figure 3, pars. 0032 & 0035-0036).
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.
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 13-17, they are also rejected for the same reasons set forth to rejecting claims 1 & 6-9 above, since claims 13-17 are merely method of operations for the apparatus defined/claimed in the claims 1 & 6-9, and claims 13-17 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 launching a different application 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 21, Davis et al teach that the processor is configured to cause the mobile device to launch the application without logging in to the account associated with the application in response to an unsuccessful authentication attempt (figures 5-6).
As to claim 22, Cheng et al teach that the processor is configured to cause
an application action associated with the application to be performed in response to the multi-touch gesture being authenticated (figures 12-13).
As to claim 23, Feng et al teach that the processor is configured to: receive and authenticate a different multi-touch gesture; and in response to the different multi-touch gesture being authenticated, launch the application, login to the account associated with the application, and cause a different application action associated with the application to be performed (figure 3, pars. 0032 & 0035-0036).
As to claim 24, Cheng et al teach that the application is an online payment application, the application action is an initiation of a payment request, and the different application action is an initiation of a transfer of funds (pars. 0057-0059).
As to claim 25, Feng et al teach that the account is a user account of the application (pars. 0035-0036)
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) and Feng et al (U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2015/0199504 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).
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s amendments with respect to the claims 1-25 filed on September 09, 2025 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 rejection of claims 1-25).
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a). A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any extension fee pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the date of this final action.
Content Information
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/BHARAT BAROT/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2453December 04, 2025