Prosecution Insights
Last updated: May 04, 2026
Application No. 18/475,972

EVALUATING REPRESENTATIONS WITH READ-OUT MODEL SWITCHING

Non-Final OA §101§102§103
Filed
Sep 27, 2023
Priority
Sep 28, 2022 — provisional 63/411,005
Examiner
NGUYEN, MAIKHANH
Art Unit
2144
Tech Center
2100 — Computer Architecture & Software
Assignee
Deepmind Technologies Limited
OA Round
1 (Non-Final)
87%
Grant Probability
Favorable
1-2
OA Rounds
8m
Est. Remaining
99%
With Interview

Examiner Intelligence

Grants 87% — above average
87%
Career Allowance Rate
622 granted / 713 resolved
+32.2% vs TC avg
Strong +28% interview lift
Without
With
+28.2%
Interview Lift
resolved cases with interview
Typical timeline
3y 3m
Avg Prosecution
14 currently pending
Career history
727
Total Applications
across all art units

Statute-Specific Performance

§101
20.6%
-19.4% vs TC avg
§103
37.6%
-2.4% vs TC avg
§102
20.7%
-19.3% vs TC avg
§112
9.2%
-30.8% vs TC avg
Black line = Tech Center average estimate • Based on career data from 713 resolved cases

Office Action

§101 §102 §103
DETAILED ACTION The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA. This action is responsive to the application filed 09/27/2023 . Claims 1- 20 are presented for examination. Claims 1 , 16, and 17 are independent Claims. Drawings 2 . The drawings filed 09/27/2023 are acceptable for examination purposes. Information Disclosure Statement 3 . The Applicant’s Information Disclosure Statement ( filed 09/05/2024) has been received, entered into the record, and considered. Specification The specification has not been checked to the extent necessary to determine the presence of all possible minor errors. Applicant's cooperation is requested in correcting any errors of which applicant may become aware in the specification. Claim Objections 5. Claim s 2-15 are objected to because of the following informalities: “A method” should be amended to read “The method”. Appropriate correction is required. Examiner’s Note 6. The following set of rejections regarding the pending claims are based upon the Examiner’s interpretation of “and/or” equal “or”. Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101 35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows: Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title. Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (i.e., an abstract idea) without significantly more. Step1: determine whether the claim is directed to one of the four statutory categories of invention, i.e., process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter. If YES, proceed to Step 2A, broken into two prongs. Step 2A, Prong 1: determine whether or not the claims recite a judicial exception (e.g., mathematical concepts, mental processes, certain methods of organizing human activity). If YES, the analysis proceeds to the second prong. Step 2A, Prong 2: determine whether or not the claims integrate the judicial exception into a practical application. If NOT, the analysis proceeds to determining whether the claim is a patent-eligible application of the exception (Step 2B). Step 2B: If any element or combination of elements in the claim is sufficient to ensure that the claim integrates the judicial exception into a practical application, or else amounts to significantly more than the abstract idea itself. Regarding Claims 1-15: Step 1 Analysis Claims 1-15 are directed to a method and therefore fall into one of the statutory categories. Step 2 Analysis Independent Claim 1 includes the following recitation of an abstract idea: “determining a respective score for each of the candidate neural networks, comprising evaluating the encoder neural network of the candidate neural network using a plurality of read-out heads, each read-out head comprising parameters for predicting a target value from a latent representation of an input value of a data item encoded using the encoder neural network of the candidate neural network” and “selecting the neural network from the plurality of candidate neural networks using the respective scores” (the limitations encompass a human mind carrying out the function through observation, evaluation, judgment and /or opinion, or even with the aid of pen and paper. Thus, these limitations recite and fall within the “Mental Processes” grouping of abstract ideas); Independent Claim 1 recites the following additional elements, which, considered individually and as an ordered combination do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application: “obtaining a sequence of data items, each of the data items comprising an input value and a target value” ( this is insignificant extra-solution activity, which does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application or amount to significantly more than the abstract idea . See MPEP 2106.05(g). The courts have identified mere data gathering is well-understood, routine and conventional activity. See MPEP 2106.05(d)) The elements “automatically selecting a neural network from a plurality of computer-implemented candidate neural networks, each candidate neural network comprising at least an encoder neural network trained to encode an input value as a latent representation”; “the respective score for each of the candidate neural networks is based on a respective information score for each of a plurality of mappings, each mapping being a choice for each of the data items of a corresponding one of the read-out heads”; and “the information score for a given mapping depending on a cumulative performance, over the sequence of data items, of the corresponding read-out heads in predicting the target values of the data items from a latent representation produced by the encoder neural network of the input values of the data items” are recited at a high-level of generality such that they amount no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computer, and/or mere computer components, MPEP 2106.05(f). The claimed limitations therefore do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. The claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. After considering all claim elements individually and as an ordered combination, it is determined that the claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception for the reasons given above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application. Therefore, the claim is not patent eligible. Regarding Claim 2, the limitations “determining the information score for a given mapping comprises: using the encoder neural network of the candidate neural network to encode the input value of the data item as a latent representation” and “for each of the corresponding read-out heads, determining a respective loss value using the target value of the data item and a predicted target value of the data item obtained by processing the latent representation using the read-out head” encompass a human mind carrying out the function through observation, evaluation, judgment and /or opinion, or even with the aid of pen and paper. Thus, the claim recites further mental process. The claim does not recite additional elements to integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. After considering all claim elements individually and as an ordered combination, it is determined that the claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception for the reasons given above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application. Therefore, the claim is not patent eligible. Regarding Claim 3, the limitation “the loss value is a cross-entropy loss value” is recited at a high-level of generality such that it amounts no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computer, and/or mere computer components, MPEP 2106.05(f). After considering all claim elements individually and as an ordered combination, it is determined that the claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception for the reasons given above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application. Therefore, the claim is not patent eligible. Regarding Claim 4, the limitation “using the loss values to select one of the read-out heads for use with the selected neural network,” encompass a human mind carrying out the function through observation, evaluation, judgment and /or opinion, or even with the aid of pen and paper. Thus, the claim recites further mental process. The claim does not recite additional elements to integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. After considering all claim elements individually and as an ordered combination, it is determined that the claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception for the reasons given above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application. Therefore, the claim is not patent eligible. Regarding Claim 5, the limitations “determining the respective information scores for the mappings by iterating over the data items in the sequence and updating the parameters of the read-out heads by training or retraining each of the read-out heads after one or more data items have been processed by the read-out head” encompass a human mind carrying out the function through observation, evaluation, judgment and /or opinion, or even with the aid of pen and paper. Thus, the claim recites further mental process. The claim does not recite additional elements to integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. After considering all claim elements individually and as an ordered combination, it is determined that the claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception for the reasons given above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application. Therefore, the claim is not patent eligible. Regarding Claim 6, the limitation “each read-out head is trained or retrained on a training dataset comprising one or more of the data items that the read-out head has processed” is recited at a high-level of generality such that it amounts no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computer, and/or mere computer components, MPEP 2106.05(f). After considering all claim elements individually and as an ordered combination, it is determined that the claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception for the reasons given above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application. Therefore, the claim is not patent eligible. Regarding Claim 7, the limitation “each read-out head is trained on the training dataset using gradient descent” is recited at a high-level of generality such that it amounts no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computer, and/or mere computer components, MPEP 2106.05(f). After considering all claim elements individually and as an ordered combination, it is determined that the claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception for the reasons given above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application. Therefore, the claim is not patent eligible. Regarding Claim 8, the limitation “the mappings are selected according to a hidden Markov model” is recited at a high-level of generality such that it amounts no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computer, and/or mere computer components, MPEP 2106.05(f). After considering all claim elements individually and as an ordered combination, it is determined that the claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception for the reasons given above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application. Therefore, the claim is not patent eligible. Regarding Claim 9, the limitation “each information score is weighted by transition probabilities reflecting the probability of the mapping under the hidden Markov model” is recited at a high-level of generality such that it amounts no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computer, and/or mere computer components, MPEP 2106.05(f). After considering all claim elements individually and as an ordered combination, it is determined that the claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception for the reasons given above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application. Therefore, the claim is not patent eligible. Regarding Claim 10, the limitations “the plurality of mappings comprises all possible mappings” encompass a human mind carrying out the function through observation, evaluation, judgment and /or opinion, or even with the aid of pen and paper. Thus, the claim recites further mental process. The claim does not recite additional elements to integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. After considering all claim elements individually and as an ordered combination, it is determined that the claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception for the reasons given above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application. Therefore, the claim is not patent eligible. Regarding Claim 11, the limitations “the information score is or comprises a minimum description length score” is recited at a high-level of generality such that it amounts no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computer, and/or mere computer components, MPEP 2106.05(f). After considering all claim elements individually and as an ordered combination, it is determined that the claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception for the reasons given above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application. Therefore, the claim is not patent eligible. Regarding Claim 12, the limitation “using the selected neural network in an image, video or audio classification and/or recognition system” is recited at a high-level of generality such that it amounts no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computer, and/or mere computer components, MPEP 2106.05(f). After considering all claim elements individually and as an ordered combination, it is determined that the claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception for the reasons given above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application. Therefore, the claim is not patent eligible. Regarding Claim 13, the limitation “each candidate neural network comprises a trained variational autoencoder neural network” is recited at a high-level of generality such that it amounts no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computer, and/or mere computer components, MPEP 2106.05(f). After considering all claim elements individually and as an ordered combination, it is determined that the claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception for the reasons given above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application. Therefore, the claim is not patent eligible. Regarding Claim 14, the limitations “the latent representation of each candidate neural network comprises a vector with the same number of latent values, and wherein each candidate neural network has one or more of (i) a different set of hyperparameter values, and (ii) a different set of weight initialization values, and (iii) a different number of layers” are recited at a high-level of generality such that it amounts no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computer, and/or mere computer components, MPEP 2106.05(f). After considering all claim elements individually and as an ordered combination, it is determined that the claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception for the reasons given above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application. Therefore, the claim is not patent eligible. Regarding Claim 15, the limitation “using at least the encoder neural network of the selected neural network in i) a classification neural network system; ii) a reinforcement learning neural network system; or iii) a data storage and/or transmission system” is recited at a high-level of generality such that it amounts no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computer, and/or mere computer components, MPEP 2106.05(f). After considering all claim elements individually and as an ordered combination, it is determined that the claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception for the reasons given above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application. Therefore, the claim is not patent eligible. Regarding Claim 16: Step 1 Analysis Claim 16 is directed to a system and therefore fall into one of the statutory categories. Step 2 Analysis Independent Claim 16 includes the following recitation of an abstract idea: “determining a respective score for each of the candidate neural networks, comprising evaluating the encoder neural network of the candidate neural network using a plurality of read-out heads, each read-out head comprising parameters for predicting a target value from a latent representation of an input value of a data item encoded using the encoder neural network of the candidate neural network” and “electing the neural network from the plurality of candidate neural networks using the respective scores” (the limitations encompass a human mind carrying out the function through observation, evaluation, judgment and /or opinion, or even with the aid of pen and paper. Thus, these limitations recite and fall within the “Mental Processes” grouping of abstract ideas); Independent Claim 16 recites the following additional elements, which, considered individually and as an ordered combination do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application: “obtaining a sequence of data items, each of the data items comprising an input value and a target value” (this is insignificant extra-solution activity, which does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application or amount to significantly more than the abstract idea. See MPEP 2106.05(g). The courts have identified mere data gathering is well-understood, routine and conventional activity. See MPEP 2106.05(d)) The elements “a system comprising one or more computers and one or more storage devices storing instructions that when executed by the one or more computers cause the one or more computers to perform operations for automatically selecting a neural network from a plurality of computer-implemented candidate neural networks, each candidate neural network comprising at least an encoder neural network trained to encode an input value as a latent representation”; “the respective score for each of the candidate neural networks is based on a respective information score for each of a plurality of mappings, each mapping being a choice for each of the data items of a corresponding one of the read-out heads”; and “the information score for a given mapping depending on a cumulative performance, over the sequence of data items, of the corresponding read-out heads in predicting the target values of the data items from a latent representation produced by the encoder neural network of the input values of the data items” are recited at a high-level of generality such that they amount no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computer, and/or mere computer components, MPEP 2106.05(f). The claimed limitations therefore do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. The claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. After considering all claim elements individually and as an ordered combination, it is determined that the claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception for the reasons given above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application. Therefore, the claim is not patent eligible. Regarding Claims 17-20: Step 1 Analysis Claims 17-20 are directed to a non-transitory computer readable medium and therefore falls into one of the statutory categories. Step 2 Analysis Independent Claim 17 includes the following recitation of an abstract idea: “determining a respective score for each of the candidate neural networks, comprising evaluating the encoder neural network of the candidate neural network using a plurality of read-out heads, each read-out head comprising parameters for predicting a target value from a latent representation of an input value of a data item encoded using the encoder neural network of the candidate neural network” and “selecting the neural network from the plurality of candidate neural networks using the respective scores” (the limitations encompass a human mind carrying out the function through observation, evaluation, judgment and /or opinion, or even with the aid of pen and paper. Thus, these limitations recite and fall within the “Mental Processes” grouping of abstract ideas); Independent Claim 17 recites the following additional elements, which, considered individually and as an ordered combination do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application: “obtaining a sequence of data items, each of the data items comprising an input value and a target value” (this is insignificant extra-solution activity, which does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application or amount to significantly more than the abstract idea. See MPEP 2106.05(g). The courts have identified mere data gathering is well-understood, routine and conventional activity. See MPEP 2106.05(d)) The elements “one or more non-transitory computer storage media storing instructions”; “one or more computers cause the one or more computers to perform operations for automatically selecting a neural network from a plurality of computer-implemented candidate neural networks, each candidate neural network comprising at least an encoder neural network trained to encode an input value as a latent representation”; “the respective score for each of the candidate neural networks is based on a respective information score for each of a plurality of mappings, each mapping being a choice for each of the data items of a corresponding one of the read-out heads”; and “the information score for a given mapping depending on a cumulative performance, over the sequence of data items, of the corresponding read-out heads in predicting the target values of the data items from a latent representation produced by the encoder neural network of the input values of the data items” are recited at a high-level of generality such that they amount no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computer, and/or mere computer components, MPEP 2106.05(f). The claimed limitations therefore do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. The claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. After considering all claim elements individually and as an ordered combination, it is determined that the claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception for the reasons given above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application. Therefore, the claim is not patent eligible. Regarding claims 18-20, the claims correspond to claims 2-4. Therefore, they are rejected for the same reasons. Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102 8. 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. 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)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention. Claims 1, 5-7, and 10-17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Lee et al. (US 20220019856). It is noted that any citations to specific, pages, columns, paragraphs, lines, or figures in the prior art references and any interpretation of the reference should not be considered to be limiting in any way. A reference is relevant for all it contains and may be relied upon for all that it would have reasonably suggested to one having ordinary skill in the art. See MPEP 2123. As to C laim 1: Lee teaches a method of automatically selecting a neural network from a plurality of computer-implemented candidate neural networks, each candidate neural network comprising at least an encoder neural network trained to encode an input value as a latent representation (Figs. 1-3) , the method comprising: obtaining a sequence of data items, each of the data items comprising an input value and a target value ([0023-0024]) ; and determining a respective score for each of the candidate neural networks, comprising evaluating the encoder neural network of the candidate neural network using a plurality of read-out heads, each read-out head comprising parameters for predicting a target value from a latent representation of an input value of a data item encoded using the encoder neural network of the candidate neural network ([0018-0021] and [0048-0054]) ; and selecting the neural network from the plurality of candidate neural networks using the respective scores ([0004], [0018], and [0052-0055]); wherein the respective score for each of the candidate neural networks is based on a respective information score for each of a plurality of mappings, each mapping being a choice for each of the data items of a corresponding one of the read-out heads ([0032-0033], [0049-0054],and [0074-0076]), the information score for a given mapping depending on a cumulative performance, over the sequence of data items, of the corresponding read-out heads in predicting the target values of the data items from a latent representation produced by the encoder neural network of the input values of the data items ([0048-0051] and [0074]). As to C laim 5: Lee teaches determining the respective information scores for the mappings by iterating over the data items in the sequence and updating the parameters of the read-out heads by training or retraining each of the read-out heads after one or more data items have been processed by the read-out head (0032-0033] and [0048-0051]). As to C laim 6: Lee teaches each read-out head is trained or retrained on a training dataset comprising one or more of the data items that the read-out head has processed (0032-0033] and [0048-0051]). As to C laim 7: Lee teaches each read-out head is trained on the training dataset using gradient descent ([0006-0007] and [0055]). As to C laim 10: Lee teaches the plurality of mappings comprises all possible mappings ([0049-0054]). As to C laim 11: Lee teaches the information score is or comprises a minimum description length score ([0048-0052]). As to C laim 12: Lee teaches using the selected neural network in an image, video or audio classification and/or recognition system ([0020], [0024], and [0084]). As to claim 13: Lee teaches each candidate neural network comprises a trained variational autoencoder neural network ([0053-0054] and [0074-0076]). As to C laim 14: Lee teaches the latent representation of each candidate neural network comprises a vector with the same number of latent values, and wherein each candidate neural network has one or more of (i) a different set of hyperparameter values, and (ii) a different set of weight initialization values, and (iii) a different number of layers ([0032-0033] and [0040-0041]). As to C laim 15: Lee teaches using at least the encoder neural network of the selected neural network in i) a classification neural network system; ii) a reinforcement learning neural network system; or iii) a data storage and/or transmission system ([0019-0021] and [0087-0088]). As to C laim 16: Refer to the discussion of C laim 1 above for rejection. Claim 16 is the same as C laim 1, except C laim 16 is a system C laim and C laim 1 is a method C laim. As to C laim 17: Refer to the discussion of C laim 1 above for rejection. Claim 17 is the same as C laim 1, except C laim 17 is a computer storage media C laim and C laim 1 is a method C laim. 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 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 may not be obtained though the invention is not identically disclosed or described as set forth in section 102 of this title, if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. Patentability shall not be negatived by the manner in which the invention was made. Claims 2, 3, 8, 9, 18, and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lee et al. in view of Yang et al. (US 20210374132). As to C laims 2 and 18: Lee teaches determining the information score for a given mapping comprises: using the encoder neural network of the candidate neural network to encode the input value of the data item as a latent representation ([0032-0033], [0048-0051] and [0078-0080]). Lee, however, does not explicitly teach, Yang teaches for each of the corresponding read-out heads, determining a respective loss value using the target value of the data item and a predicted target value of the data item obtained by processing the latent representation using the read-out head ([0046] and [0060]). It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Lee with Yang because it would have provided the enhanced capability for determining diversity and explainability parameters for recommendation accuracy in machine learning recommendation systems. As to Claims 3 and 19: Lee does not explicitly teach, Yang teaches the loss value is a cross-entropy loss value ([0046] and [0081-0082]). It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Lee with Yang because it would have provided the enhanced capability for determining diversity and explainability parameters for recommendation accuracy in machine learning recommendation systems. As to Claim 8: Lee does not explicitly teach, Yang teaches the mappings are selected according to a hidden Markov model ([0030]). It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Lee with Yang because it would have provided the enhanced capability for determining diversity and explainability parameters for recommendation accuracy in machine learning recommendation systems. As to Claim 9: Lee does not explicitly teach, Yang teaches each information score is weighted by transition probabilities reflecting the probability of the mapping under the hidden Markov model ([0030]). It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Lee with Yang because it would have provided the enhanced capability for determining diversity and explainability parameters for recommendation accuracy in machine learning recommendation systems. Allowable Subject Matter 10. Claims 4 and 20 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims, subject to the 101 rejections detailed above, subject to the results of a final search by the Examiner. Conclusion 11 . The prior art made of record, listed on PTO 892 provided to Applicant is considered to have relevancy to the claimed invention. Applicant should review each identified reference carefully before responding to this office action to properly advance the case in light of the prior art. Contact information 12 . Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MAIKHANH NGUYEN whose telephone number is (571) 272-4093. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Friday (8:00 am – 5:30 pm). If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, TAMARA KYLE can be reached at (571)272-4241. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from Patent Center and the Private Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from Patent Center or Private PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Patent Center or Private PAIR to authorized users only. Should you have questions about access to Patent Center or the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). 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) Form at https://www.uspto.gov/patents/uspto-automated- interview-request-air-form . /MAIKHANH NGUYEN/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2144
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Prosecution Timeline

Sep 27, 2023
Application Filed
Mar 28, 2026
Non-Final Rejection — §101, §102, §103 (current)

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Prosecution Projections

1-2
Expected OA Rounds
87%
Grant Probability
99%
With Interview (+28.2%)
3y 3m (~8m remaining)
Median Time to Grant
Low
PTA Risk
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