Prosecution Insights
Last updated: April 19, 2026
Application No. 18/472,655

Time Sharing Among Multiple Wireless Stations During a Single Resource Unit

Non-Final OA §102§103
Filed
Sep 22, 2023
Examiner
ONAMUTI, GBEMILEKE J
Art Unit
2463
Tech Center
2400 — Computer Networks
Assignee
Apple Inc.
OA Round
1 (Non-Final)
86%
Grant Probability
Favorable
1-2
OA Rounds
2y 7m
To Grant
86%
With Interview

Examiner Intelligence

Grants 86% — above average
86%
Career Allow Rate
689 granted / 801 resolved
+28.0% vs TC avg
Minimal -0% lift
Without
With
+-0.5%
Interview Lift
resolved cases with interview
Typical timeline
2y 7m
Avg Prosecution
8 currently pending
Career history
809
Total Applications
across all art units

Statute-Specific Performance

§101
8.1%
-31.9% vs TC avg
§103
53.9%
+13.9% vs TC avg
§102
12.9%
-27.1% vs TC avg
§112
6.6%
-33.4% vs TC avg
Black line = Tech Center average estimate • Based on career data from 801 resolved cases

Office Action

§102 §103
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 . 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. Claim Objections 2. Claim 2 is objected to under 37 CFR 1.75 as being a substantial duplicate of Claim 10. When two claims in an application are duplicates or else are so close in content that they both cover the same thing, despite a slight difference in wording, it is proper after allowing one claim to object to the other as being a substantial duplicate of the allowed claim. See MPEP § 608.01(m). Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102 3. The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action: A person shall be entitled to a patent unless – (a)(1) The claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention. 4. Claims 1-3, 8, 10-13 and 16-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Publication No.: US 2021/0007137 A1 to Abouelseoud et al. (Abouelseoud). As to Claim 1, Abouelseoud discloses an apparatus comprising: a processor (Fig. 17, ‘computer processor (CPU) 16’) configured to: cause a wireless station to receive, from a transmitter (‘Fig. 43 illustrates an example embodiment 570 of a STA processing a packet received from an AP with future scheduling of RTA packets’, ¶ 0233), information indicating that the wireless station is to time-share a resource unit (RU) with one or more other wireless stations also communicating with the transmitter (‘the first way of indicating that the RU is shared by another STA in time is through using the reserved bit, with the user field redefined as follows: 11 bits B0-B10 of STA_ID indicate the STA ID where the user field is represented; 4 bits B11-B14 of Spatial Configuration indicate the number of spatial streams for a STA in a MU-MIMO allocation; 4 bits B15-B18 of MCS indicating the modulation and coding scheme; 1 bit B19 indicating RU Sharing indicating if the RU is time-shared with another STA, indicating that another user field is expect that defines the other STA parameters; and one bit B20 of Coding indicates whether BCC or LDPC is used’, ¶ 0244); and cause the wireless station to use the RU in a time-shared manner with the one or more other wireless stations during wireless communications with the transmitter, responsive to the information indicating that the wireless station is to time-share the RU (‘when the RU sharing subfield is set to 1, The RU associated with that user field is shared with another STA in time (time-sharing). This is done by transmitting the packet to the other STA after the end of the packet transmission to the STA with the STA_ID defined in this user field. The STA transmitting this field adds the user field of the STA sharing this RU after the end of all user fields originally scheduled to use the available Rus’, ¶ 0245). As to Claim 2, Abouelseoud further discloses cause the wireless station to use the RU in the time-shared manner for downlink orthogonal frequency-division multiple access communications with the transmitter (‘Fig. 41 illustrates an example embodiment 510 of AP DL OFDMA pre-contention and future scheduling of RTA data. The AP is assumed to be aware of the schedule of the RTA packet arrival and has an expectation of when the RTA packet should arrive. The AP initiates a timer where this time is a countdown to the expected arrival of the RTA packet. If the channel is busy the AP starts the process 518 to contend for and then gain access to the channel at block 526, after which it schedules 528 DL MU MIMO and RTA packet transmission in the future, after which it resets 530 the packet counter before execution returns to block 512. If the channel is not found busy at block 516, then block 520 is reached with the AP checking if it has data to schedule for other STAs. If the AP has scheduled DL MU-MIMO/OFDMA transmission, then it reaches block 526 and the AP gains access to the channel, and schedules 528 DL MU MIMO and RTA packet transmission in the future, after which it resets 530 the counter before execution returning to block 512’, ¶s 0225-0227; see also ¶ 0228). As to Claim 3, Abouelseoud further discloses wherein the information is received in a packet frame, wherein the information is provided via: a reserve bit set in a preamble of the packet frame (‘the first way of indicating that the RU is shared by another STA in time is through using the reserved bit, with the user field redefined as follows: 11 bits B0-B10 of STA_ID indicate the STA ID where the user field is represented; 4 bits B11-B14 of Spatial Configuration indicate the number of spatial streams for a STA in a MU-MIMO allocation; 4 bits B15-B18 of MCS indicating the modulation and coding scheme; 1 bit B19 indicating RU Sharing indicating if the RU is time-shared with another STA, indicating that another user field is expect that defines the other STA parameters; and one bit B20 of Coding indicates whether BCC or LDPC is used’, ¶ 0244); and a specified number of bits in a common field of the packet frame (‘allocation field in the Common field and the position of the User field in the User Specific field together identify the RU used to transmit data for a STA. The user field in 802.11ax is defined with 21 bits that indicate STA ID, spatial configuration, MCS and coding used in the RU assignment. Specifically the 11 bits B0-B10 of STA_ID indicate the STA ID where the user field is represented; the 4 bits B11-B14 of Spatial Configuration indicate the number of spatial streams for a STA in a MU-MIMO allocation; the 4 bits B15-B18 of MCS indicate the modulation and coding scheme; 1 bit B19 is reserved and set to 0; and one bit B20 of Coding indicates whether BCC or LDPC is used’, ¶ 0240). As to Claim 8, Abouelseoud further discloses wherein the information comprises a special identifier associated with the RU, wherein the processor is further configured to: determine whether the wireless station is associated with the special identifier (‘in this case the user field is redefined as follows: 11 bits B0-B10 of STA_ID indicate the STA ID where the user field is represented; 8 bits B11-B19 of Time _to _Start _Second _STAT_Transmission indicates the time offset from the beginning of the packet reception where the second STA time sharing the RU is to be started; and 1 bit B20 being reserved’, ¶ 0251). As to Claim 10, Abouelseoud further discloses cause the wireless station to use the RU in the time-shared manner for downlink orthogonal frequency-division multiple access communications with the transmitter (‘Fig. 41 illustrates an example embodiment 510 of AP DL OFDMA pre-contention and future scheduling of RTA data. The AP is assumed to be aware of the schedule of the RTA packet arrival and has an expectation of when the RTA packet should arrive. The AP initiates a timer where this time is a countdown to the expected arrival of the RTA packet. If the channel is busy the AP starts the process 518 to contend for and then gain access to the channel at block 526, after which it schedules 528 DL MU MIMO and RTA packet transmission in the future, after which it resets 530 the packet counter before execution returns to block 512. If the channel is not found busy at block 516, then block 520 is reached with the AP checking if it has data to schedule for other STAs. If the AP has scheduled DL MU-MIMO/OFDMA transmission, then it reaches block 526 and the AP gains access to the channel, and schedules 528 DL MU MIMO and RTA packet transmission in the future, after which it resets 530 the counter before execution returning to block 512’, ¶s 0225-0227; see also ¶ 0228). As to Claim 11, Abouelseoud further discloses wherein the information comprises a predefined identifier associated with the wireless station and at least one designated wireless station of the one or more other wireless stations (‘in the above example only 5 bits are used to indicate the time offset where the second transmission should start. The number of bits can vary depending on the resolution needed and the unit can be in any time unit or in predefined ticks. In case the first TX was padding, the STA ID of the first STA can be a dummy STA ID and the PHY data is intended to the second STA (e.g., the delayed transmission)’, ¶ 0262). As to Claim 12, Abouelseoud discloses a wireless station comprising: radio circuitry configured to transmit and receive wireless signals for wireless communications of the wireless station (Fig. 17, ‘in this example, the host machine is shown configured with a millimeter-wave (mmW) modem 20 coupled to radio-frequency (RF) circuitry 22a, 22b, 22c to a plurality of antennas 24a-24n, 25a-25n, 26a-26n to transmit and receive frames with neighboring STAs’, ¶ 0126); and a processor (Fig. 17, ‘computer processor (CPU) 16’) communicatively coupled to the radio circuitry and configured to interoperate with the radio circuitry to: cause the wireless station to receive (‘Fig. 43 illustrates an example embodiment 570 of a STA processing a packet received from an AP with future scheduling of RTA packets’, ¶ 0233), from an access point (AP), information indicating that the wireless station is to time-share a resource unit (RU) with one or more other wireless stations also communicating with the AP (‘the first way of indicating that the RU is shared by another STA in time is through using the reserved bit, with the user field redefined as follows: 11 bits B0-B10 of STA_ID indicate the STA ID where the user field is represented; 4 bits B11-B14 of Spatial Configuration indicate the number of spatial streams for a STA in a MU-MIMO allocation; 4 bits B15-B18 of MCS indicating the modulation and coding scheme; 1 bit B19 indicating RU Sharing indicating if the RU is time-shared with another STA, indicating that another user field is expect that defines the other STA parameters; and one bit B20 of Coding indicates whether BCC or LDPC is used’, ¶ 0244); and cause the wireless station to use the RU in a time-shared manner with the one or more other wireless stations during wireless communications with the AP, responsive to the information indicating that the wireless station is to time-share the RU (‘when the RU sharing subfield is set to 1, The RU associated with that user field is shared with another STA in time (time-sharing). This is done by transmitting the packet to the other STA after the end of the packet transmission to the STA with the STA_ID defined in this user field. The STA transmitting this field adds the user field of the STA sharing this RU after the end of all user fields originally scheduled to use the available Rus’, ¶ 0245). As to Claim 13, Abouelseoud further discloses cause the wireless station to use the RU in the time-shared manner for downlink orthogonal frequency-division multiple access communications with the AP (‘Fig. 41 illustrates an example embodiment 510 of AP DL OFDMA pre-contention and future scheduling of RTA data. The AP is assumed to be aware of the schedule of the RTA packet arrival and has an expectation of when the RTA packet should arrive. The AP initiates a timer where this time is a countdown to the expected arrival of the RTA packet. If the channel is busy the AP starts the process 518 to contend for and then gain access to the channel at block 526, after which it schedules 528 DL MU MIMO and RTA packet transmission in the future, after which it resets 530 the packet counter before execution returns to block 512. If the channel is not found busy at block 516, then block 520 is reached with the AP checking if it has data to schedule for other STAs. If the AP has scheduled DL MU-MIMO/OFDMA transmission, then it reaches block 526 and the AP gains access to the channel, and schedules 528 DL MU MIMO and RTA packet transmission in the future, after which it resets 530 the counter before execution returning to block 512’, ¶s 0225-0227; see also ¶ 0228). As to Claim 16, Abouelseoud further discloses wherein the information comprises a special association identifier (AID) associated with the RU, wherein the processor is further configured to determine whether the wireless station is associated with the special AID (‘Fig. 55 illustrates user information fields 970 as was contained in the trigger frame format of Fig. 54. This user field is defined in 802.11ax and contains the STA AID, the RU allocation for the STA, UL parameters which may include FEC coding type, MCS, DCM, spatial streams allocation and the targeted RSSI, or similar’, ¶ 0313). As to Claim 17, Abouelseoud discloses a non-transitory memory element storing instructions executable by a processor to: cause a transmitter (Fig. 17, ‘antenna 24a’) to transmit information to a wireless station (‘Fig. 43 illustrates an example embodiment 570 of a STA processing a packet received from an AP with future scheduling of RTA packets’, ¶ 0233), wherein the information indicates that the wireless station is to time-share a resource unit (RU) with one or more other wireless stations also communicating with the transmitter (‘the first way of indicating that the RU is shared by another STA in time is through using the reserved bit, with the user field redefined as follows: 11 bits B0-B10 of STA_ID indicate the STA ID where the user field is represented; 4 bits B11-B14 of Spatial Configuration indicate the number of spatial streams for a STA in a MU-MIMO allocation; 4 bits B15-B18 of MCS indicating the modulation and coding scheme; 1 bit B19 indicating RU Sharing indicating if the RU is time-shared with another STA, indicating that another user field is expect that defines the other STA parameters; and one bit B20 of Coding indicates whether BCC or LDPC is used’, ¶ 0244); and cause the transmitter to use the RU to communicate in a time-shared manner with the wireless station and the one or more other wireless stations, responsive to the information indicating that the wireless station is to time-share the RU (‘when the RU sharing subfield is set to 1, The RU associated with that user field is shared with another STA in time (time-sharing). This is done by transmitting the packet to the other STA after the end of the packet transmission to the STA with the STA_ID defined in this user field. The STA transmitting this field adds the user field of the STA sharing this RU after the end of all user fields originally scheduled to use the available Rus’, ¶ 0245). As to Claim 18, Abouelseoud further discloses cause the transmitter to transmit at least a portion of the information in a preamble (‘the AP transmits a common preamble 216 followed by packets transmissions 218 in the assigned resource units (RUs). The AP transmit the RTA packets in one of the assigned RUs to the STA that is expected to receive the RTA packets’, ¶ 0173). As to Claim 19, Abouelseoud further discloses cause the transmitter to transmit at least a portion of the information via special signaling indicating the RU with which the wireless station is associated (‘the AP transmits a common preamble 216 followed by packets transmissions 218 in the assigned resource units (RUs). The AP transmit the RTA packets in one of the assigned RUs to the STA that is expected to receive the RTA packets’, ¶ 0173). Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103 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, 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. Claims 4-7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Abouelseoud, in view of Publication No.: US 2014/0169387 A1 to Kim et al. (Kim). As to Claim 4, Abouelseoud does not expressly disclose wherein the information includes a group identifier identifying a group of devices that includes the wireless station and one or more of the one or more other wireless stations. However, Kim discloses wherein the information includes a group identifier identifying a group of devices that includes the wireless station and one or more of the one or more other wireless stations (Figs. 2 and 3, ‘the user terminal 1 may be, for example, a user terminal that has the same group ID as the group frame and that desires to receive original data located in a first position among original data included in the group frame. The user terminal 2 may be, for example, a user terminal that has the same group ID as the group frame and that desires to receive original data located in a second position among the original data included in the group frame. The user terminal N may be, for example, a user terminal that has the same group ID as the group frame and that desires to receive original data located in an N.sup.th position among the original data included in the group frame’, ¶s 0100, 0102 and 0104). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to provide ‘wherein the information includes a group identifier identifying a group of devices that includes the wireless station and one or more of the one or more other wireless stations’ as disclosed by Kim into Abouelseoud so as to effectively reduce data transmission resources and to increase data throughput in wireless communication system, Kim ¶ 0008. As to Claim 5, Abouelseoud does not expressly disclose wherein the information is received in a packet frame, and wherein the group identifier is used by the transmitter for a user specific field in the packet frame. However, Kim discloses wherein the information is received in a packet frame, and wherein the group identifier is used by the transmitter for a user specific field in the packet frame (‘the user terminal N may be, for example, a user terminal that has the same group ID as the group frame and that desires to receive original data located in an N.sup.th position among the original data included in the group frame. The user terminal N may receive a user-specific SIG field associated with the user terminal N, that is, a SIG N field, may calculate a waiting time, and may operate in the power saving mode. The user terminal N may calculate the waiting time, based on a SIG TOTAL field and a SIG 1 field to the SIG N field. The waiting time of the user terminal N may refer to a period of time during which a second data field between the SIG N field and an LTF N are transmitted’, ¶ 0104). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to provide ‘wherein the information is received in a packet frame, and wherein the group identifier is used by the transmitter for a user specific field in the packet frame’ as disclosed by Kim into Abouelseoud so as to effectively reduce data transmission resources and to increase data throughput in wireless communication system, Kim ¶ 0008. As to Claim 6, Abouelseoud further discloses wherein the user specific field comprises a device identifier list for at least one RU (‘allocation field in the Common field and the position of the User field in the User Specific field together identify the RU used to transmit data for a STA. The user field in 802.11ax is defined with 21 bits that indicate STA ID, spatial configuration, MCS and coding used in the RU assignment. Specifically the 11 bits B0-B10 of STA_ID indicate the STA ID where the user field is represented; the 4 bits B11-B14 of Spatial Configuration indicate the number of spatial streams for a STA in a MU-MIMO allocation; the 4 bits B15-B18 of MCS indicate the modulation and coding scheme; 1 bit B19 is reserved and set to 0; and one bit B20 of Coding indicates whether BCC or LDPC is used’, ¶ 0240). As to Claim 7, Abouelseoud further discloses search the device identifier list to determine whether it includes an identifier corresponding to the wireless station (‘in this case the user field is redefined as follows: 11 bits B0-B10 of STA_ID indicate the STA ID where the user field is represented, the STA matching its ID with that STA ID uses the data in that user field; 4 bits B11-B14 of User _ Field _ Index _to_ Copy _PHY _params_from is the index of the first STA time sharing the RU user field, while the second STA time sharing the RU will use the PHY parameters in the user field referred to by that index to extract available PHY parameters; 5 bits B15-B19 of Time _ to _ Start_Second_STA_Transmission indicates the time offset from the beginning of the packet reception where the second STA time sharing the RU is to be started’, ¶ 0261). 7. Claim 14 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Abouelseoud, in view of Publication No.: US 2023/0328718 A1 to Yu et al. (Yu). As to Claim 14, Abouelseoud does not expressly disclose wherein the information is received in a Physical Layer Protocol Data Unit (PPDU) frame, wherein the information is provided via: a reserve bit set in a universal signal (U-SIG) field of the PPDU frame; and a specified number of bits in a common field of the PPDU frame. However, Yu discloses wherein the information is received in a Physical Layer Protocol Data Unit (PPDU) frame (‘a station STA receives a trigger frame, where the trigger frame is used for triggering the station to send an extremely high throughput trigger based physical layer protocol data unit EHT TB PPDU’, ¶ 0013), wherein the information is provided via: a reserve bit set in a universal signal (U-SIG) field of the PPDU frame (‘optionally, when the first indication information only indicates the value of the SRP2 field in the U-SIG, 4 reserved bits in a common information field of the trigger frame, for example, 4 reserved bits in an HE-SIG-A2 reserved field or a reserved field, may be used for carrying the first indication information. In other words, the 4 reserved bits indicate the value of the SRP2 field in the U-SIG. The common information field of the trigger frame includes four UL SRP fields’, ¶ 0233); and a specified number of bits in a common field of the PPDU frame (‘optionally, when the first indication information only indicates the value of the SRP2 field in the U-SIG, 4 reserved bits in a common information field of the trigger frame, for example, 4 reserved bits in an HE-SIG-A2 reserved field or a reserved field, may be used for carrying the first indication information. In other words, the 4 reserved bits indicate the value of the SRP2 field in the U-SIG. The common information field of the trigger frame includes four UL SRP fields’, ¶ 0233). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to provide ‘wherein the information is received in a Physical Layer Protocol Data Unit (PPDU) frame, wherein the information is provided via: a reserve bit set in a universal signal (U-SIG) field of the PPDU frame; and a specified number of bits in a common field of the PPDU frame’ as disclosed by Yu into Abouelseoud so as to effectively trigger frame and schedule transmission in wireless communication system, Yu ¶ 0006. 8. Claim 20 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Abouelseoud, in view of Publication No.: US 2008/0130722 A1 to Choi et al. (Choi). As to Claim 20, Abouelseoud does not expressly disclose cause the transmitter to transmit a beacon frame comprising information conveying a predefined number that indicates the number of symbols to be used for wireless communications with the transmitter by a receiver that receives the beacon frame. However, Choi discloses cause the transmitter to transmit a beacon frame comprising information conveying a predefined number that indicates the number of symbols to be used for wireless communications with the transmitter by a receiver that receives the beacon frame (‘a controller for providing a band selection signal to the RF receiver and outputting a preamble selection signal at regular symbol periods to calculate a cross correlation value for a predetermine time period more than a beacon frame interval when a time-frequency code search start signal is received from the MAC receiver’, ¶ 0014). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to provide ‘cause the transmitter to transmit a beacon frame comprising information conveying a predefined number that indicates the number of symbols to be used for wireless communications with the transmitter by a receiver that receives the beacon frame’ as disclosed by Choi into Abouelseoud so as to effectively detect a time-frequency code in a Multi-Band Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing Ultra-Wideband (MB-OFDM UWB) system, Choi ¶ 0006. 9. Claims 9 and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Abouelseoud, in view of Publication No.: US 2023/0155820 A1 to Wang et al. (Wang). As to Claim 9, Abouelseoud does not expressly disclose wherein the processor is further configured to: use a Bloom filter provided at the beginning of a packet frame in determining whether the wireless station is associated with the special identifier. However, Wang discloses wherein the processor is further configured to: use a Bloom filter provided at the beginning of a packet frame in determining whether the wireless station is associated with the special identifier (‘the first computing system generates, based on the nonce and a function, an array including a share of a Bloom filter representing user group identifiers for user groups that include a user of the client device as a member. For each of multiple user group identifiers, the first computing system calculates, in collaboration with one or more second computing systems of the secure MPC system and using the array, a respective first secret share of one or more user group membership condition parameters’, see also ¶ 0003). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to provide ‘wherein the processor is further configured to: use a Bloom filter provided at the beginning of a packet frame in determining whether the wireless station is associated with the special identifier’ as disclosed by Wang into Abouelseoud so as to effectively reduce latency in transmitting and receiving information in wireless communication system, Wang ¶ 0011. As to Claim 15, Abouelseoud does not expressly disclose wherein the information includes a group association identifier (gAID), wherein the wireless station and at least one of the one or more other wireless stations are associated with the gAID. However, Wang discloses wherein the information includes a group association identifier (gAID), wherein the wireless station and at least one of the one or more other wireless stations are associated with the gAID (‘the first computing system generates, based on the nonce and a function, an array including a share of a Bloom filter representing user group identifiers for user groups that include a user of the client device as a member. For each of multiple user group identifiers, the first computing system calculates, in collaboration with one or more second computing systems of the secure MPC system and using the array, a respective first secret share of one or more user group membership condition parameters’, see abstract; see also ¶ 0003). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to provide ‘wherein the information includes a group association identifier (gAID), wherein the wireless station and at least one of the one or more other wireless stations are associated with the gAID’ as disclosed by Wang into Abouelseoud so as to effectively reduce latency in transmitting and receiving information in wireless communication system, Wang ¶ 0011. Conclusion 10. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to GBEMILEKE J ONAMUTI whose telephone number is (571) 270-5619. The examiner can normally be reached 8:00 AM - 5:00 PM. Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, ASAD NAWAZ can be reached at (571) 272-3988. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000. /GBEMILEKE J ONAMUTI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2463
Read full office action

Prosecution Timeline

Sep 22, 2023
Application Filed
Feb 21, 2026
Non-Final Rejection — §102, §103 (current)

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Prosecution Projections

1-2
Expected OA Rounds
86%
Grant Probability
86%
With Interview (-0.5%)
2y 7m
Median Time to Grant
Low
PTA Risk
Based on 801 resolved cases by this examiner. Grant probability derived from career allow rate.

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