DETAILED ACTION
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
Applicant's arguments filed 09/18/2025 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Generally, Examiner notes that the amended claims do not appear to provide an adequate or a complete description of the intended method. The claims rely on an average of actual directions of the objects in the same manner as the prior art. The claims do not appear to perform any approximation or additional calculation with respect to objects in the image. Recognizing that an object facing the camera is 180 degrees different from an object facing away from the camera does not add anything new to the knowledge in the art or modify the claimed method to perform materially different steps.
Examiner suggests claiming more detail on the steps of determination of directions in which the objects are facing.
Applicant argues regarding the newly amended claims: “In one aspect of the inventions, independent claim I recites an electronic device that includes a processor and a memory storing a program that … In yet another aspect of the inventions, independent claim 17 recites an electronic device control method that includes steps patterned after the functions of the elements in the electronic device recited in independent claim 1. In this manner, Applicant's inventions provide the ability to determine the direction in which a specific object is facing, is positioned, with respect to a reference direction of an omnidirectional image, and a part of the specific object showing in the omnidirectional image.”
Examiner notes that recitation of a claim in its entirety does not particularly point out the specific feature that Applicant believes to overcome the prior art. See rejection of the amended claim language below.
Applicant argues: “The Nagai document discusses a special digital camera that is capable of obtaining an entire celestial sphere panoramic image, but the image is difficult for a user to see, and a smart phone, or the like, displays a prescribed region image, i.e., part of the entire celestial sphere panoramic image. The prescribed region image is, however, fixed to an image at a part predetermined before the product was shipped out of a factory, and, therefore, if the image has no change ( or little change) without a photographed person, or the like, the user does not understand what the prescribed region image represent”
Examiner is not clear as to what claim feature or reason for rejection Applicant intends to address by this argument. Claims 1 and 17 in the argument are rejected in view of AAPA, Ptucha, and Liu. See reasons for rejection below.
Applicant argues: “The Ptucha patent discusses a computer implemented method for modifying a digital image including identifying two or more individual regions in the digital image that each includes a human face, and digitally defining at least one combined region that includes the two or more individual regions, wherein at least one border of the at least one combined region is collinear with a border of one of the individual regions. In more detail, the Ptucha patent merely discusses that vectors indicating an orientation for each face is computed based on a facial pose or an eye gaze, and an average direction of the vectors is used to determine a final crop area. …
Examiner again notes that this argument is not directed to any particular claim language or reason for rejection. See citations to specific parts of Ptucha below.
Applicant argues: “The Frueh patent discusses a method and a system directed towards identifying, by a processing device, at least one media clip … In more detail, the Frueh patent merely discusses detecting a region containing the focus of attention based on the total overlap of gaze directions of multiple human objects. Applicant submits, however, that the device in the Frueh patent does not take the average of the gaze directions, …”
Examiner notes that this argument is not directed to specific claim language or reason for rejection. Particularly, the average direction is addressed by the combination of Liu and Ptucha as cited below.
Applicant argues: “The Baker publication discusses an imaging device for monitoring a skin feature … In more detail, the Baker publication merely discusses that standard elements of image metadata include thumbnail images. … Applicant submits, however, that the cited art does not teach or suggest many features of Applicant's inventions, as recited in the independent claims. For example, the cited art does not teach or suggest anything about a back of a specific object showing in the omnidirectional image.”
Examiner again notes that this does not appear to be directed to a particular claim element or reason for rejection. Examiner further notes that a back of an object appears to be a feature of the image content or the imaged environment rather than a property of the claimed device or method. It is not clear that imaging a back of the object is sufficient to establish patentability of an image processing method.
Applicant argues: “As mentioned above, in the amended independent claims, the direction in which the specific object is facing can be determined based on the direction in which the specific object is positioned, with respect to the reference direction of the omnidirectional image, and a part of the specific object showing in the omnidirectional image. None of the cited art teaches or suggests such features.”
Examiner notes that claims do not appear to provide an adequate or a complete description of the intended method. The claims rely on an average of actual directions of the objects in the same manner as the prior art. The claims do not appear to perform any approximation or additional calculation with respect to objects in the image. Recognizing that an object facing the camera is 180 degrees different from an object facing away from the camera does not add anything new to the knowledge in the art or modify the claimed method to perform materially different steps.
Examiner suggests claiming more detail on the steps of determination of directions in which the objects are facing.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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.
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.
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.
This paragraph describes the treatment of admitted prior art. In describing an invention, Applicant must inevitably reference that which is known in the art as the basis for the invention, however it is important that the claims particularly point out and distinctly claim that which Applicant regards to be his own invention. See 35 U.S.C. 112 (b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph. A statement by an applicant in the specification or made during prosecution identifying prior art is an admission which can be relied upon for both anticipation and obviousness determinations, regardless of whether the admitted prior art would otherwise qualify as prior art under the statutory categories of 35 U.S.C. 102. Riverwood Int ’l Corp. v. R.A. Jones & Co., 324 F.3d 1346, 1354, 66 USPQ2d 1331, 1337 (Fed. Cir. 2003); Constant v. Advanced Micro-Devices Inc., 848 F.2d 1560, 1570, 7 USPQ2d 1057, 1063 (Fed. Cir. 1988). The examiner must determine whether the subject matter identified as prior art is applicant’s own work, or the work of another. In the absence of another credible explanation, examiners should treat such subject matter as the work of another. MPEP 2129.
Claims 1, 5-12, 15-19, 21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Applicant admitted prior art as described in the Specification (“AAPA”) in view of US 20200257918 to Liu (“Liu”) and in view of US 9008436 to Ptucha (“Ptucha “).
Note that AAPA also includes Japanese Patent No. 6665440 (“JP 6665440”) as noted in Specification, Paragraph 4 and provided in an IDS.
Regarding Claim 1: “An electronic device comprising:
a processor; and a memory storing a program which, when executed by the processor, causes the electronic device to (“The image management system 5 includes … a program for the image management system 5 deployed from CPU501 to RAM503.” AAPA, JP 6665440, Paragraph 64.)
acquire an omnidirectional image; (Under the broadest reasonable interpretation consistent with the specification and ordinary skill in the art, an omnidirectional image can be acquired by using a wide angle or a spherical (fisheye lens) or by moving a normal camera to capture a panoramic image. See Specification, Paragraphs 92. Prior art teaches this concept: “widespread in recent years. Such imaging devices can acquire wide-angle images (such as spherical panoramic images, …” AAPA, Specification, Paragraph 3. See similarly in Liu, Paragraph 6.)
AAPA does not teach the element below.
Liu teaches the elements below in the context of orienting multidirectional images:
“to acquire directions in which a plurality of specific objects are positioned with respect to a reference direction of the omnidirectional image, in a case when the omnidirectional image includes the plurality of specific objects; (“Rendering a 360 image can involve the selection of a viewpoint or viewing direction pertaining to the 360 captured scene,” Liu, Paragraph 6. “the target viewing area or the main viewing area (1210) can be offset from persons or objects of interest … The first determining code (1410) may be further configured to determine a plurality of objects in the 360 degree video” Liu, Paragraphs 95, 124. “A center [reference direction] of the target viewing area is aligned to the interest object, or the target viewing area is offset from a center of the interest object, based on a position of the interest object.” Liu, Paragraph 105. See similarly in Ptucha, Column 16, lines 35-43. Thus, the objects of interest have known positions with respect to the reference direction of the viewing area.)
to determine that the specific object is facing in a direction obtained by adding one hundred eighty degrees to the direction in which the specific object is positioned, in a case when a front of the specific object is showing in the omnidirectional image; … to determine that the specific object is facing in the direction in which the specific object is positioned, in a case when a back of the specific object is showing in the omnidirectional image; … to determine that the specific object is facing in a direction obtained by adding ninety degrees to the direction in which the specific object is positioned, in a case when a right side of the specific object is showing in the omnidirectional image; … to determine that the specific object is facing in a direction obtained by subtracting ninety degrees from the direction in which the specific object is positioned, in a case when a left side of the specific object is showing in the omnidirectional image; (“the person of interest is image recognized as having a head posture pointed to a direction (for example, above left or below right), … The offset may be determined or set based upon the head posture and/or a body posture of the person of interest.” Liu, Paragraph 95. See similarly “the algorithm computes vectors indicating the orientation for each face in the image” Ptucha, Column 16, lines 51-54.
While Liu does not explicitly describe that back of the head means direction away from the camera, front of the head means direction toward the camera, and left and right sides of the head mean 90 degree angles with respect to the camera, these are basic geometric concepts that are well understood in this art. And, since the Specification and the prior art use the actual orientations of the objects to determine where the image should center, the choice of nomenclature for specific orientations does not appear to be material to performing the claimed functions.)
to perform control so as to display, on a screen, a partial range of the omnidirectional image based on the [average] direction” (“A center of the target viewing area is aligned to the interest object, or the target viewing area is offset from a center of the interest object, based on a position of the interest object.” Liu, Paragraph 105. See application to average direction below.)
Therefore, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to supplement the teachings of AAPA to perform the above functions as taught in Liu, in order to determine the target viewing area based on head postures of the persons in the image” Liu, Paragraphs 95, 105.
AAPA and Liu do not teach performing the elements below with respect to an average direction.
Ptucha teaches this feature in the context of selecting the viewing image direction based on the objects in the image:
to acquire an average direction of directions in which the plurality of specific objects are facing; and (“the algorithm computes vectors indicating the orientation for each face in the image … The average direction of the vectors is used” Ptucha, Column 16, lines 51-54.)
to perform control so as to display, on a screen, a partial range of the omnidirectional image based on the average direction” “The average direction of the vectors is used to bias the low priority 55 region formation in the direction, or average direction, in which the faces are looking. … The average direction of the vectors is used to bias the low priority region formation in the direction, or average direction, in which the faces are looking.” Ptucha, Column 16, lines 51-59, and Figs. 7-9.)
Therefore, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to supplement the teachings of AAPA, and Liu to perform the above functions as taught in Ptucha, in order to “automatically convert complex digital facial information into a pleasing composition”. Ptucha, Column 2, lines 40-44.
Finally, in reviewing the present application, there does not seem to be objective evidence that the claim limitations are particularly directed to: addressing a particular problem which was recognized but unsolved in the art, producing unexpected results at the level of the ordinary skill in the art, or any other objective indicators of non-obviousness.
Regarding Claim 5: “The electronic device of claim 1, wherein a direction in which an object is facing is determined based on an orientation of a head of the object.” (“the person of interest is image recognized as having a head posture pointed to a direction (for example, above left or below right),” Liu, Paragraph 95. Similarly see Putcha, Column 16, lines 51-60.)
Regarding Claim 6: “The electronic device of claim 1, wherein a direction in which an object is facing is a direction in which a finger of the object is pointing.” (“The offset may be determined or set based upon the head posture and/or a body posture of the person of interest.” While Liu does not provide an explicit example that a pointing finger is a body posture, it is well understood in the art that a finger is part of a body and an example of a body posture that indicates a direction of a person’s attention. Liu, Paragraph 95.)
Regarding Claim 7: “The electronic device of claim 1, wherein a direction in which an object is facing is a direction of a line of sight of the object.” (“the person of interest is image recognized as having a head posture pointed to a direction (for example, above left or below right), then it is likely that the person of interest is looking at an object or person in that direction,” representing a line of sight. Liu, Paragraph 95.)
Regarding Claim 8: “The electronic device of claim 1, wherein the program, when executed by the processor, further causes the electronic device to
determine the direction in which the specific object is facing, on a basis of a position of the specific object (“The target viewing area ( e.g., the cropped video (1110) of FIG. 11) or the main viewing area (1210) can be center aligned to one or more persons (1240) of interest … the person of interest is image recognized as having a head posture pointed to a direction (for example, above left or below right), then it is likely that the person of interest is looking at an object or person in that direction,” representing a line of sight. Liu, Paragraph 95.)
in a rendered image resulting from rendering the omnidirectional image, (“For example, if a person of interest is facially recognized in the 360 degree [wide angle] video, and the person of interest is image recognized as having a head posture pointed to a direction.” Liu, Paragraph 95. See examples of rendered 360 degree images in Liu, Figs. 11-12.)
and a range of the specific object shown in the rendered image.” (“Correction of distortions in the target viewing area (e.g., the cropped video (1110) of FIG. 11) or the main viewing area (1210) … by applying the image correction filter separately to individual sections, along with different camera to object distance (or focal distance) settings.” Liu, Paragraph 96.)
Regarding Claim 9: “The electronic device of claim 8, wherein the rendered image is an image resulting from rendering the omnidirectional image by equirectangular projection, Mercator projection, or cylindrical equal-area projection.” (“The projection of an image representing a spherical capture scene onto a planar surface has been a known and well-studied problem for centuries. One well-known projection is, for example, the Mercator projection, introduced in 1569,” Liu, Paragraph 8.)
Regarding Claim 10: “An electronic device of Claim 1, wherein
in a case when the omnidirectional image includes a plurality of specific objects, (“The target viewing area ( e.g., the cropped video (1110) of FIG. 11) or the main viewing area (1210) can be center aligned to one or more persons (1240) of interest or one or more objects of interest … if a person of interest is facially recognized in the 360 degree [wide-angle] video, … recognized as having a head posture pointed to a direction (for example, above left or below right), then it is likely that the person of interest is looking at an object or person in that direction,” Liu, Paragraph 95. See statement of motivation in Claim 1)
the program, when executed by the processor, further causes the electronic device: … to classify the plurality of specific objects into one or a plurality of groups, on a basis of directions in which the specific objects are facing; and (As noted in Liu, Paragraph 95, the plurality of recognized objects are classified into one or more groups of: persons of interest, objects of interest, persons indicated by head or body posture of a person of interest, objects indicated by head or body posture of a person of interest. Also note that objects can be classified as faces (i.e. grouped into objects that are faces). The faces can be further classified into groups by fitness score based on location, size, and gaze direction, in Putcha, Column 14, lines 6-19. See statements of motivation in Claim 1.)
to acquire, for each classified group, an average direction of one or more directions in which one or more specific objects belonging to the group is facing; and (“the algorithm computes vectors indicating the orientation for each face in the image. The average direction of the vectors is used” Ptucha, Column 16, lines 51-54. See statements of motivation in Claim 1.)
to perform control so as to display on the screen, for each classified group, a partial range of the omnidirectional image.” (“The average direction of the vectors is used to bias the low priority 55 region formation in the direction, or average direction, in which the faces are looking. … The average direction of the vectors is used to bias the low priority region formation in the direction, or average direction, in which the faces are looking.” Ptucha, Column 16, lines 51-59, and Figs. 7-9. See application to wide angle images and statements of motivation in Claim 1.)
Regarding Claim 12: “The electronic device of claim 1, wherein the program when executed by the processor causes the electronic device in a case when the omnidirectional image includes plurality of specific objects, to generate, as a thumbnail image, an image of a partial range within the omnidirectional image, being a range of an average direction, of directions in which the plurality of specific objects is facing, in the omnidirectional image.” (“a partial region of a wide-angle image is cut out, and is displayed as a thumbnail image. Japanese Patent No. 6665440 discloses acquiring, as a thumbnail image, a region that includes an image of a person, within a wide-angle image.” AAPA, Specification, Paragraph 4. See extending the range to include multiple human objects and to areas of objects’ attention in Claim 1.)
Regarding Claim 15: “The electronic device of claim 1, wherein the specific object is a person.” (“a partial region of a wide-angle image is cut out, and is displayed as a thumbnail image. Japanese Patent No. 6665440 discloses acquiring, as a thumbnail image, a region that includes an image of a person, within a wide-angle image.” AAPA, Specification, Paragraph 4. See similar features in Liu, Paragraph 85 and statement of motivation in Claim 1.)
Regarding Claim 16: “The electronic device of claim 1, wherein the omnidirectional image is a spherical image.” (“acquire wide-angle images (such as spherical panoramic images, hemispherical panoramic images,” AAPA, Specification, Paragraph 3. See similarly in Liu, Paragraph 8 and statement of motivation in Claim 1.)
Claim 17, “An electronic device control method,” is rejected for reasons stated for Claim 1, because the apparatus elements of Claim 1 perform the method steps of Claim 17.
Claim 18, “A non-transitory computer readable medium that stores a program, wherein the program causes a computer to execute an electronic device control method according to claim 17” is rejected for reasons stated for Claims 1 and 17, and because prior art teaches: “ROM112 has memorized various programs for CPU111. SRAM113 and DRAM114 are work memories, which store programs to be executed in CPU111.” AAPA, JP 6665440, Paragraph 36. See similarly in Liu, Paragraph 114.)
Regarding Claim 19: “The electronic device of claim 10, wherein the plurality of specific objects are classified so that objects facing in similar directions belong to a same group.” (For example, the objects can all be classified as human faces, and thus belong to the same classification group. See Ptucha, Column 10, lines 4-7. See similarly in Frueh, Column 7, lines 42-45 and Figs. 2B-2D. See statement of motivation in Claim 1.)
Regarding Claim 21: “The electronic device of claim 15, wherein the directions in which the plurality of specific objects are facing are acquired based on position and orientation of the plurality of specific objects.” (“Using face padding rules, that are governed by face size, location, and aspect ratio … the algorithm computes vectors indicating the orientation for each face in the image” Ptucha, Column 16, lines 41-54. See statement of motivation in Claim 1.)
Claims 4, 11, 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over AAPA, Ptucha, Liu, in view of US 9445047 to Frueh (“Frueh”).
Regarding Claim 4: “The electronic device of claim 1,
AAPA and Liu do not teach the claim elements below.
Frueh teaches the claim elements below in the context of identifying and encoding areas of a omnidirectional image:
wherein the average direction is a weighted average of directions in which the specific objects are facing (“A viewing cone includes multitude of directions, from a viewer's perspective, from which an intended object can be seen without distortions, in which each direction may have an individual weight of attention. The central axis of the cone is the straight line, passing through the apex, about which the base has a rotational symmetry.” Frueh, Column 7, lines 22-30. Thus the central axis of the viewing cone represents a weighted average of the viewing directions of the viewer’s perspective.)
Therefore, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to supplement the teachings of AAPA and Liu to perform the above claim functions in the manner taught in Frueh, in order to identify the important part of the image “that best captures the attention focus.” See, Frueh, Column 8 lines 27-37.
based on distances between the plurality of specific objects and an imaging device that has captured the omnidirectional image.” ( “The face boxes are shown in 720. Using face padding rules, that are governed by face size, location,” Putcha, Column 16, lines 34-36. Similarly see “In another implementation, the score from the human object may be calculated as a function of a distance from the human object” Frueh, Column 7, lines 45-47. See statements of motivation above and in Claim 1.)
Regarding Claim 11. “The electronic device of claim 10, wherein the program when executed by the processor further causes the electronic device, for each of the plurality of groups, classify the plurality of specific objects so that a difference between a maximum and a minimum of directions in which one or more specific objects belonging to the group are facing is less than a predetermined value." (“For example, the field of view may be assumed to be 60° for each human object,” requiring that the difference between the maximum and the minimum direction is smaller than 61°. Frueh, Column 7, lines 32-33. See statement of motivation in Claim 4.)
Regarding Claim 20: “The electronic device of claim 10, wherein the program, when executed by the processor, further causes the electronic device:
to generate, for each classified group, as a thumbnail image, a partial range of the omnidirectional image corresponding to the directions in which the specific objects belonging to the group are facing; and (For example, “If more than one targeted person or object are selected, then … multiple separate target viewing areas can be defined respectively for the targets (one for each target) and a final video may be a grid of the multiple separate target viewing areas. The cropped [thumbnailed] target viewing area can be encoded for an output video transmission to a remote viewer via a network.” Liu, Paragraphs 90-91. See statement of motivation in Claim 1. See targeting each viewing area by attention of human objects in Claims 1 and 10.)
to determine, as a thumbnail image of the omnidirectional image, an image selected by a user from a plurality of thumbnail images.” (Note that AAPA, Liu, and Frueh teach how to automatically select an image range based on multiple possible image ranges, as noted in Claims 1 and 10. However, it would have been obvious to substitute manual selection for an automated one. As noted in Frueh, “Human operators may act as the editor to decide which stream of video contains the region of interest ( e.g., the most salient object or person) and select the best video feed among the multiple video streams for any given moment. Lower-cost systems (such as video conference systems) can try to accomplish video editing automatically without the human editor.” See Frueh, Column 1, lines 17-21. See statement of motivation in Claim 4.)
Claims 13-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over AAPA, Ptucha, Liu, and Frueh in view of US 20170303844 to Baker (“Baker”).
Regarding Claim 13: “The electronic device of claim 12, wherein the program when executed by the processor, further causes the electronic device to perform control so as to record the thumbnail image, on a recording medium, embedded as metadata [in the omnidirectional image].” (Prior art teaches recording image information as metadata in AAPA, JP 6665440 in Paragraph 40 and in Liu, Paragraphs 54, 65. More specifically, “Based on this video stream, the area of maximum interest can be identified and used, for example, for automatic video editing, metadata creation,” in the context of a wide angle video stream Frueh, Column 2, lines 45-47. See statement of motivation in Claim 4.
AAPA, Ptucha, Liu, and Frueh do not teach “to record the thumbnail image, on a recording medium, embedded as metadata in the omnidirectional image” itself.
Baker teaches the above claim feature in the context of identifying important parts and annotating omnidirectional images: “using the Exif (exchangeable image file format) standard, … Standard elements of image metadata include … thumbnail image, GPS location and the like” in Baker, Paragraphs 49, and that the image can be a omnidirectional image in Paragraph 51.
Therefore, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to supplement the teachings of AAPA, Liu, and Frueh to store thumbnail image as a metadata in a wide-angel image as taught in Baker, in order to record the information relating to the image in the same file. Baker, Paragraph 49.
Finally, in reviewing the present application, there does not seem to be objective evidence that the claim limitations are particularly directed to: addressing a particular problem which was recognized but unsolved in the art, producing unexpected results at the level of the ordinary skill in the art, or any other objective indicators of non-obviousness.
Regarding Claim 14: “The electronic device of claim 12, wherein the program when executed by the processor, further causes the electronic device to perform control so as to record the thumbnail image, on a recording medium, associated with the omnidirectional image.” (See reasons for rejection of Claim 13, because “record the thumbnail image, on a recording medium, associated with the wide-angle image” reads on the metadata recorded in Claim 13.)
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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 nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) 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 mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MIKHAIL ITSKOVICH whose telephone number is (571)270-7940. The examiner can normally be reached Mon. - Thu. 9am - 8pm.
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/MIKHAIL ITSKOVICH/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2483
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