DETAILED ACTION
In Reply filed on 01/05/2026 and 01/16/2026, claims 1-20 are pending. Claim 1 is currently amended. No claim is canceled, and claim 20 is newly added. Claims 1-20 are considered in this Office 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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 01/16/2026 has been entered.
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 for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of ejection 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 application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 1, 3-7, 10-17, and 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kritchman (US 20200047252 A1) in view of Mayr (US 20180127317 A1).
Regarding claim 1, Kritchman teaches a method of making a three-dimensional article (abstract) comprising:
a) inkjetting a sol through a nozzle having a diameter of 10 micrometers to 70 micrometers to form a plurality of droplets of printed sol (claim 16: jetting object material including particles to form a product structure; figs. 1, 3 and [0042]: the plurality of nozzles are configured to dispense ink from ink reservoir to form the object layer-by-layer; [0068]: for example, when the dispensing print head includes nozzles of 30 µm diameter; [0067]: the ink include a dispersion of solid particles of any desired material, such as metals, ceramic material, metal oxides, oxides, metal alloys; for metal oxides or oxides (e.g., SiO2, TiO2, ZrO2, BiO2); [0171]: a composite of epoxy/sol-gel; [0172]: GLYMO-TEOS alone or with additives (e.g., PVP)), wherein the sol comprises:
i) [5 percent by volume (vol. %) to 40 vol. % of] metal oxide particles ([0067]), [based on the total volume of the sol], the metal oxide particles having an average particle size of 20 nanometers (nm) or less and of 1/100 to 1/10,000 of the diameter of the nozzle ([0068]: the particles of nanosize from about 5 to about 500 nanometers; [0068, 0070]: nozzles of 30 µm diameter, as average particle diameters; here, although the disclosed ranges do not anticipate the recited ranges, Kritchman’s disclosed ranges overlap with the recited ranges between 5 and 20 nanometer (for the particle size) and between 0.000167 and 0.01 (for the ratio the particle size to the nozzle diameter, i.e., 5nm/30µm = 0.000167; 500 nm/30µm = 0.0167; 20nm/300µm = 0.00067); In the case where the claimed ranges "overlap or lie inside ranges disclosed by the prior art" a prima facie case of obviousness exists. In re Wertheim, 541 F.2d 257, 191 USPQ 90 (CCPA 1976); In re Woodruff, 919 F.2d 1575, 16 USPQ2d 1934 (Fed. Cir. 1990) (MPEP 2144.05 I));
ii) a solvent ([0088-0090]: carrier liquid);
iii) a surface modifying agent ([0093-0098]: dispersing agent); and
iv) a polymerizable component [that can undergo free radical polymerization] ([0168-0173]: one or more additive materials may be added to the ink in order to assist in the processing of the final product, e.g., [0171]: epoxy to form a composite of epoxy/sol-gel; [0172]: GLYMO-TEOS alone or with additives (e.g., PVP));
b) solidifying the printed sol to form a portion of the three-dimensional article ([0034]: printing region 102 may be warmed to a required object temperature to assist in solidifying a recently printed layer or to accelerate the evaporation of at least part of the ink liquid components; [0158]: a heat source configured to provide heat in the printing area to solidify a recently deposited ink; [0214]: each printed layer is hardened before jetting the sequential layer); and
c) repeating steps a) and b) to form the three-dimensional article, the three-dimensional article having a specified geometry (claim 16 and [0123]: a method of making a product by ink jet printing object material including particles; [0008]: a layer-by-layer basis; [0033]: an object from a digital model by laying down successive layers of material until the object is created [0153]: based on 3D data representing an actual tooth).
Kritchman does not specifically teach the bracketed limitation(s) as presented above, i.e., “[5 percent by volume (vol. %) to 40 vol. % of] metal oxide particles, [based on the total volume of the sol]”, and “a polymerizable component [that can undergo free radical polymerization],” but Mayr teaches the limitation(s) as follows:
Mayr teaches a process of using a printing sol as construction material in an additive manufacturing process for producing a 3D article particularly useful in dental and orthodontic area for producing dental restorations and orthodontic brackets ([0001], claim 1), the printing sol comprising: solvent(s) (equivalent to “a solvent” as recited in claim 1); nano-sized crystalline zirconia particles in an amount from 2 to 25 vol.% with respect to the volume of the sol, the average primary particle size of the nano-sized crystalline zirconia particles being in a range up to 50 nm (equivalent to “a metal oxide” as recited in claim 1; here, although the disclosed range of the volume percent of the metal oxide particles does not anticipates the recited range, the disclosed range overlaps with the recited range between 5 to 25 vol. %; In the case where the claimed ranges "overlap or lie inside ranges disclosed by the prior art" a prima facie case of obviousness exists. In re Wertheim, 541 F.2d 257, 191 USPQ 90 (CCPA 1976); In re Woodruff, 919 F.2d 1575, 16 USPQ2d 1934 (Fed. Cir. 1990) (MPEP 2144.05 I)); a first monomer being a polymerizable surface modification agent represented by formula A-B, with A being capable of attaching to the surface of the nano-sized crystalline zirconia particles and B being a radiation curable group (equivalent to “a surface modifying agent” as recited in claim 1); optionally a second monomer, the second monomer comprising at least one radiation curable moiety but no acidic or silane group(s) (equivalent to “a polymerizable component” as recited in claim 1); and photoinitiator(s) (claim 1; [0262-0271]: surface modification agent; [0291-0298]: second monomer that undergoes free radical polymerization).
In the same field of endeavor of forming an additively manufactured 3D articles in particularly for a dental application (Kritchman: abstract, [0150]; Mayr: abstract, [0001]), it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing invention to modify the printing sol of Kritchman to replace with a known corresponding component with a specific ratio (e.g., for metal oxide and a polymerizable component) as taught by Mayr or to substitute the printing sol of Kritchman with another known composition of the printing sol as taught by Mayr in order to obtain known results or a reasonable expectation of successful results of forming a 3D printed dental article such as artificial teeth having desired strength, density, and translucence in the printed article (Mayr: derived from [0016-0019]).
Regarding claim 3, modified Kritchman teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the sol further comprises one or more elements selected from the group consisting of Mn, Fe, Cu, Pr, Nd, Sm, Eu, Tb, Dy, Er, Cr, Co, Ni, Al, Ti, V, Ta, Y, Ce, Mg, Ca, La, Sc, and Bi, wherein the one or more elements are provided as a plurality of particles (Kritchman: [0067]; Mayr: [0147], claim 4).
Regarding claim 4, modified Kritchman teaches the method of claim 3, wherein the sol is a first sol and the method further comprises inkjetting through a nozzle having a diameter of 10 micrometers to 70 micrometers a droplet of a second sol onto a solidified printed droplet of the first sol, wherein the first sol and the second sol do not have the same composition (Kritchman: [0006]: adjusting parameters between model and support inks to assist in the making of a product by inkjet printing, or to improve the results of the final printed model, or both; [0064, 0068]: “ink” includes material for printing of the model, the support, or additives from a third head, and the dispensing head having a nozzles of 30 µm diameter; [0078-0082]: support inks comprising solid particles; [0108-0111]: systems for forming a product with a first material and a second material, to unevenly distribute the first material and the second material in a layer-by-layer basis to impart differing structural characteristics to differing portions of the product based on the information reflective of the desired properties of the product (i.e., a second sol can be deposited onto a solidified droplet of the first sol, or vice versa, depending on the printing information); [0118-0119]: e.g., different composition between model ink and support ink).
Regarding claim 5, modified Kritchman teaches the method of claim 3, further comprising prior to step a), retrieving, from a non-transitory machine readable medium, data representing a 3D model of the three-dimensional article; and executing, by one or more processors, a 3D printing application interfacing with an inkjet printer using the data to generate, by the inkjet printer, a physical object of the three-dimensional article according to step a)-c) (Kritchman: fig. 1 and [0059-0060]: a digital model of an object, controller 120 comprising at least one a processor and a memory; [0111]: at least one processor configured to receive information reflective of desired properties and determine a distribution of the first and second materials; [0153]: the received instructions include 3D data representing an entire actual tooth; claims 1, 2, 6, 9: at least one processor).
Regarding claim 6, modified Kritchman teaches the method of claim 3, further comprising, prior to step a), receiving, by a manufacturing device having one or more processors, a digital object comprising data specifying the three-dimensional article; and generating, with the manufacturing device by an additive manufacturing process, the three-dimensional article based on the digital object (Kritchman: fig. 1 and [0059-0060]: a digital model of an object, controller 120 comprising at least one a processor and a memory; [0111]: at least one processor configured to receive information reflective of desired properties and determine a distribution of the first and second materials; [0153]: the received instructions include 3D data representing an entire actual tooth; claims 1, 2, 6, 9: at least one processor).
Regarding claim 7, modified Kritchman teaches the method of claim 5, wherein the data comprises information that maps out two or more different optical properties located across a geometry of a digital object corresponding to a physical object of the three-dimensional object (Kritchman: [0059-0060, 0111]; figs. 4A-C, 5 and [0135-0145]: a method for making a tinted printed part).
Regarding claim 10, modified Kritchman teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the sol further comprises at least one surfactant (Kritchman: [0101-0102]: surface modifiers that influence properties such as surface tension).
Regarding claim 11, modified Kritchman teaches the method of claim 1, wherein a portion of the droplets of the sol are printed on a support material (Kritchman: [0006]: adjusting parameters between model and support inks to assist in the making of a product by inkjet printing, or to improve the results of the final printed model, or both; [0064]: “ink” includes material for printing of the model, the support, or additives from a third head; [0108-0111]: systems for forming a product with a first material and a second material, to unevenly distribute the first material and the second material in a layer-by-layer basis to impart differing structural characteristics to differing portions of the product based on the information reflective of the desired properties of the product (i.e., a second sol can be deposited onto a solidified droplet of the first sol, or vice versa, depending on the printing information); [0118-0119]: e.g., different composition between model ink and support ink; [0082]).
Regarding claim 12, although modified Kritchman does not specifically discloses that the inkjetting is performed in a closed system, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing invention to modify the printing system of modified Kritchman to be enclosed in a closed system in order to obtain known results or a reasonable expectation of successful results of ensuring reliable and high quality outputs of a 3D printed article as maintaining printing conditions/environment in a stable and consistently controlled manner with better noise and odor control.
Regarding claim 13, modified Kritchman teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the inkjetting is performed in an open system (Kritchman: fig. 1) and wherein the method further comprises controlling a gas phase region of the system (Kritchman: a region wherein a cooling fan 114 dissipates heat stored in a recently printed layer to prevent a carrier liquid of ink droplets of new layer 124 from exploding without being attached to the surface; of note, here, the evaporating region of the carrier liquid of the new layer ink droplets is controlled by reducing the temperature of the region, and the reducing a temperature of the gas phase region is the same as the one of the ways of controlling the gas phase region, as disclosed in Instant Specification [0074], as published).
Regarding claim 14, modified Kritchman teaches the method of claim 1, further comprising subjecting the three-dimensional article to actinic radiation, heat, and/or a vapor that adjusts a pH of the three-dimensional article (Kritchman: [0183-0187]: sintering by heating after the printing process has been completed).
Regarding claim 15, although modified Kritchman is silent that the sol has a surface tension of 0.02 Joules per square meters (J/m2) to 0.08 J/m2, modified Kritchman teaches that surface tension of the carrier liquid should be compatible with the jetting head requirement as 20 to 70 mN/m (i.e., 0.02 to 0.07 J/m2) ([0089]), and the liquid formulation for jetting comprises surface modifiers that influence surface tension ([0101-0102]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing invention to modify the liquid formulation for jetting of modified Kritchman to have an optimum surface tension for jetting, if necessary, in use of surface modifiers, as taught by Kritchman in order to properly jetting the liquid formulation to form a 3D printed article in a desired shape.
Moreover, in this case, modified Kritchman’s ink formulation for jetting is produced by the identical composition as recited in claim 1. Therefore, a prima facie case of anticipation is established to the claimed property (i.e., the surface tension) by modified Kritchman. See MPEP 2112.01 I. (Where the claimed and prior art products are identical or substantially identical in structure or composition, or are produced by identical or substantially identical processes, a prima facie case of either anticipation or obviousness has been established. In re Best, 562 F.2d 1252, 1255, 195 USPQ 430, 433 (CCPA 1977). "When the PTO shows a sound basis for believing that the products of the applicant and the prior art are the same, the applicant has the burden of showing that they are not." In re Spada, 911 F.2d 705, 709, 15 USPQ2d 1655, 1658 (Fed. Cir. 1990)).
Regarding claim 16, modified Kritchman teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the sol is a first sol and the method further comprises inkjetting through a nozzle having a diameter of 10 micrometers to 70 micrometers a droplet of a second sol onto a solidified printed droplet of the first sol, wherein the first sol and the second sol have different surface tensions (Kritchman: [0006]: adjusting parameters between model and support inks to assist in the making of a product by inkjet printing, or to improve the results of the final printed model, or both; [0064, 0068]: “ink” includes material for printing of the model, the support, or additives from a third head, and the dispensing head having a nozzles of 30 µm diameter; [0078-0082]: support inks comprising solid particles; [0108-0111]: systems for forming a product with a first material and a second material, to unevenly distribute the first material and the second material in a layer-by-layer basis to impart differing structural characteristics to differing portions of the product based on the information reflective of the desired properties of the product (i.e., a second sol can be deposited onto a solidified droplet of the first sol, or vice versa, depending on the printing information); [0110]: the first and second materials may have different particle sizes or different chemical structures; [0118-0119]: e.g., different composition between model ink and support ink). Here, when the first and the second ink formulations for jetting have different particle sizes, different chemicals, or different compositions, it is obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art that the two ink formulations would have different surface tensions due to the difference.
Regarding claim 17, modified Kritchman teaches the method of claim 1, further comprising extracting a solvent from the three-dimensional article to form an aerogel article or a xerogel article; heat treating the aerogel article or the xerogel article to form a porous ceramic article; and sintering the porous ceramic article to form a sintered ceramic article (Kritchman: [0171]: a first evaporation of solvent up to about 250 °C, additional decompositions/pyrolysis around 300 °C, and up to 650 °C for forming 3D ceramic Si-O-Si network).
Regarding claim 19, modified Kritchman teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the metal oxide particles comprise zirconia, silica, or both (Kritchman: [0067]; Mayr: claim 1).
Regarding claim 20, modified Kritchman teaches the method of claim 1, wherein one or more of: the surface modifying agent is a silane or a carboxylic acid (Mayr: [0262-0268]), the surface modifying agent is a free-radical polymerizable silane or a free-radical polymerizable carboxylic acid (Mayr: [0262-0268]), and the polymerizable component is a hydroxyalkyl (meth)acrylate, an N-alkyl (meth)acrylamide, an N,N-dialkyl (meth)acrylamide, N,N-dialkylaminoalkyl (meth)acrylamide, an alkoxylated alkyl (meth)acrylate (Mayr: [0291-0298]). The motivation to combine applied to claim 1 equally applies here.
Claims 2 and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kritchman (US 20200047252 A1) and Mayr (US 20180127317 A1) as applied to claim 1 or 17 above, and further in view of Rosa* (Rosa et. al., Zirconia nano-colloids transfer from continuous hydrothermal synthesis to inkjet printing, Journal of the European Ceramic Society, 39 (1), 2019, Pages 2-8) (* cited in IDS filed on 10/10/2023).
Regarding claim 2, modified Kritchman teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the sol exits the nozzle as a plurality of uncured droplets (Kritchman: [0053, 0214]: ink droplets land on a surface), but does not specifically teach each having a volume of 4 picoliters to 200 picoliters.
Rosa teaches that water dispersion of yttria stabilized zirconia (YSZ) nanoparticles are transferred into nano-inks for thin film deposition by inkjet printing (abstract). Rosa discloses each of the ink jetting droplets has a volume of 4 picoliters to 200 picoliters (page 2: 1. Introduction: inkjet printing produces droplets with volumes in the picoliter range (10−12 L), which are jetted from hundreds of nozzles with a diameter of a few tens of microns; fig. 3: e.g., 7.5, 8.5, and 9 pL). Although the disclosed range does not anticipate the recited range, Rosa’s disclosed range overlaps with the recited range between 4 pL to 200 pL (e.g., 7.5, 8.5, and 9 pL). In the case where the claimed ranges "overlap or lie inside ranges disclosed by the prior art" a prima facie case of obviousness exists. In re Wertheim, 541 F.2d 257, 191 USPQ 90 (CCPA 1976); In re Woodruff, 919 F.2d 1575, 16 USPQ2d 1934 (Fed. Cir. 1990) (MPEP 2144.05 I).
Both modified Kritchman and Rosa disclose a diameter of nozzles ranges a few tens of micros (Kritchman: 30 μm diameter; Rosa: page 2, 1. Introduction). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of invention to modify the volume of each droplets of ink jetting of modified Kritchman to be in a range of picoliters (e.g., 9 pL) as taught by Rosa in order to obtain known results or a reasonable expectation of successful results of forming a printed pattern in an improved resolution in consideration of printing time without forming a defective satellite droplets (Rosa: derived from fig. 3 and pages 4-6: 3.2 Jetting behavior and printing).
Regarding claim 18, modified Kritchman teaches the method of claim 17, wherein the sintered ceramic article comprises a portion comprising three different optical properties, three different mechanical properties, or both (Kritchman: [0135-0145]: the sintered ceramic article comprises a portion comprising at least three different optical properties; figs. 12A-B and [0046, 0104-0107, 0122, 0130, 0161, 0245]: one or more additive materials may be added to the ink in order to assist in the processing of the final product, such as the printing or sintering step, or be printed from a separate head, to improve the properties of the final object, such as the color or mechanical properties of the printed object; [0115-0116]: typical desired properties of the product that can be altered or imparted include thermal, mechanical, chemical, or physical properties), but does not specifically teach that the portion comprises a volume of 0.6 to 500 picoliters.
Similar to as applied to claim 12, modified Kritchman further in view of Rosa teaches that the volume of each droplets of ink jetting of modified Kritchman is in a range of picoliters (e.g., 9 pL) (Rosa: page 2: 1. Introduction: inkjet printing produces droplets with volumes in the picoliter range (10−12 L), which are jetted from hundreds of nozzles with a diameter of a few tens of microns; fig. 3: e.g., 7.5, 8.5, and 9 pL). Here, it is obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art that at least three different ink droplets would be necessary to form a unit volume of a product having three different optical properties or three different mechanical properties so that the unit volume of the portion would be at least three times of a unit volume of the ink droplets (still in the picoliter ranges, e.g., 9 pL x 3 = 27 pL) or somewhat smaller than the 3x value as the printed material often shrinks after sintering (see Kritchman: [0229-0232]). Although the disclosed range does not anticipate the recited range, modified Kritchman’s disclosed range would overlap with the recited range of 0.6 pL to 500 pL (e.g., 9 pL x 3 = 27 pL). In the case where the claimed ranges "overlap or lie inside ranges disclosed by the prior art" a prima facie case of obviousness exists. In re Wertheim, 541 F.2d 257, 191 USPQ 90 (CCPA 1976); In re Woodruff, 919 F.2d 1575, 16 USPQ2d 1934 (Fed. Cir. 1990) (MPEP 2144.05 I).
Claims 8-9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kritchman (US 20200047252 A1) and Mayr (US 20180127317 A1) as applied to claim 7, and further in view of Jones (US 20100167020 A1).
Regarding claim 8, modified Kritchman teaches the method of claim 7, further comprising, prior to step a), [performing a scan of an object] and processing the scan to provide optical property data comprising the information of the two or more different optical properties (Kritchman: [0138-0145]: creating or receiving a 3D digital representation of a required object including the shape and the surface color of the object and processing the color information having an optical property information into a printing information), but does not specifically teach the bracketed limitation(s) as presented above.
Jones teaches a method of preparing 3D shaped articles using 3D printing, comprising writing of a predetermined amount of a liquid formulation from one or more dispensing outlets (claim 1, [0018], [0026]: dispensing outlets can be inkjet printing heads). Jones teaches the method further comprising, prior to step a), performing a scan of an object (claim 15: producing a stored computer model of prosthesis or implant based on scans or readings from a patient).
Both modified Kritchman and Jones teach a 3D printing process of a 3D shaped article including inkjetting a liquid formulation comprising nanoparticles, and the 3D article may benefit to fabricate dental appliance (Kritchman: claim 16, [0067, 0150]; Jones: claims 1, 10, [0060]). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing invention to modify the method of obtaining a 3D digital representation of the required object of modified Kritchman to include a known method of scanning an object as taught by Jones in order to obtain known results or a reasonable expectation of successful results of creating the 3D digital representation more precise and accurate to a desired shape so as to form a 3D printed object as closest as possible to the desired shape.
Regarding claim 9, although modified Kritchman teaches does not explicitly disclose that the method of claim 8 further comprises modifying the information based on feedback from a human being, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing invention to modify the information of the two or more different optical properties of modified Kritchman based on feedback from a user in order to achieve improved appearance or aesthetic effect of a 3D printed article than an original object which is scanned to obtain a 3D digital representation so as to restore the original object or meet the user’s need.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim 1 (which have been newly amended by the applicants) has been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection have been made due to the newly added features from the applicant’s latest amendment filed on 01/05/2026.
The basis of the applicant’s argument is based upon the changes regarding the polymerizable component. After further search and reconsideration, the Mayr reference is applied to the rejection. Thus, when Kritchman’s teaching is modified in view of Mayr, modified Kritchman does teach/suggest all the claimed limitations and the motivation to combine. Thereby, after reconsideration, claim 1 remains rejected.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Hansen (US 20180098828 A1) teaches ceramic dental restorations by additive manufacturing (abstract, figs. 1, 2).
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/INJA SONG/Examiner, Art Unit 1744