DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 11/10/2025 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 11/10/2025 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. The applicant’s arguments regarding written description are not persuasive. The applicant did not address the substance of the rejection or attempt to explain where the support for the applicant’s amendments came from in the originally filed disclosure. Regarding the applicant admitted prior art, the applicant is claiming functions performed by third party software. The applicant has failed to claim any “novel architecture” which the applicant admitted prior art operates in. The purpose of the claims recited in the preamble does not limit the generic functions to any “novel architecture”. See section 2111.02(II) of the MPEP. Regarding the Yang reference, the amended language is mapped in the current rejection.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
Claims 1-20 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention.
The applicant discloses in paragraph 66 that Figure 4 illustrates an example system 400 that can facilitate C-RAN operations. The system in Figure 4 is disclosed as including a site management component 414, an inventory management component 404, a workflow engine 402, a workflow management component 406, a network management component 408, a user interface 410, and a validation engine 412, and/or any other components.
The applicant discloses that the site management component 414, the inventory management component 404, the workflow engine 402, and the network management component 408 are well known in the art. Specifically, the applicant discloses that applicant’s site management component 414 comprises either “a bare metal orchestrator (BMO) provided by Dell” or a “Telco Cloud Automation (TCA) orchestrator provided by VMware” (see paragraphs 67 and 68). The inventory management component 404 is disclosed as a “Blue Planet Inventory (BPI) system provided by Blueplanet” (see paragraph 69). The workflow engine 402 is disclosed as a “Cisco Business Process Automation Service (BPA) in paragraph 70. The network management component 408 is disclosed as “a system provided by Infoblox”. This would leave the workflow management component 406, the user interface 410, and the validation engine 412 as being the potentially novel elements of the applicant’s own system, based on the applicant’s own characterizations.
The only description of the workflow management component 406 is in paragraph 71 which states it is “configured to manage one or more workflows to be carried out by the workflow engine 402”. There is no further description of how the workflow management component is “configured” or what it actually does not manage workflows to be carried out. Paragraph 73 states the that the user interface 410 is a generic GUI that facilitates various functions but the applicant does disclose specific details about the GUI or how it interacts with workflow engine 402, which is connected to via a line in Figure 4. Finally, the validation engine 412 is covered by some of the dependent claims but its functions are not covered by the independent claims.
Written Description Issue #1
Claims 1 features the following limitation:
accessing, by the one or more processors, inventory data to identify the one or more O-RAN components for provisioning;
Claims 9 and 15 feature the following limitation:
access inventory data to identify the one or more O-RAN components for provisioning;
The applicant did not disclose a step of accessing inventory data to identify one or more O-RAN components supplied by a first vendor, as claimed. In paragraph 110, the applicant described determining workflows/operations to perform for C-RAN provisioning by using an inventory management system (like third party Blue Planet Inventory) to identifying workflows/operations to perform. Workflows/operations are not “one or more O-RAN components for provisioning”. Paragraph 110 goes on to state that the workflows/operations themselves may identify artifacts to deploy and that these artifacts are for C-RAN components such as CSRs, DUs, RUs, and the like.
Written Description Issue #2
Claim 1 features the following limitation:
identifying, by the one or more processors, and based at least in part on the monitoring, operations to perform the provisioning based on data associated with the first vendor, wherein the operations include first operations that access a distributed unit (DU) artifact supplied by the first vendor from a repository and second operations that remotely provision distributed units (DUs) supplied by the first vendor within the DU host server system that is separate from the base stations and one or more associated radio units (RUs) deployed at one or more of the base stations;
Claim 9 features the following limitation:
identify operations to perform to provision open radio access network (O-RAN) components supplied by a first vendor of two or more vendors, wherein operations include first operations to provision distributed units (DUs) supplied by the first vendor within a DU host server system at a data center that is coupled to one or more associated radio units (RUs) via a transport layer;
Claim 15 features the following limitation:
identify, based on the first vendor operations to perform the C-RAN ZTP, wherein the operations include first operations to provision distributed units (DUs) supplied by the first vendor, wherein the DU host server system that is separate from one or more radio units (RUs);
The following is what is disclosed about the applicant’s claimed identification of operations:
[0110] At 804, the operations/workflows to perform the C-RAN provisioning are determined.
In some examples, the workflow engine 402 may communicate with the workflow management system 406, and/or the inventory management system 404 to identify the workflows/ operations to perform. For instance, the workflow engine 402 may access vendor profiles from repository 614 to identify the workflows to deploy hardware/software associated with a vendor. In some cases, different workflows can be associated with the different vendors. In this way, the workflow engine 402 can access and orchestrate the execution of the workflows for that particular vendor and/or the type of operation desired to perform. The workflows/operations may identify the artifact(s) to deploy. As discussed above, the repository 714 may include tested artifacts from different vendors that are approved to deploy within a production environment. For example, a vendor may have artifacts within the repository 614 for CSRs, DUs, CUs, RUs, and the like.
The applicant’s disclosure states that operations/workflows to perform a C-RAN operation are determined by the workflow engine 402 communicating with workflow management system 406 and/or inventory management system 404 to identify the workflow/operations to perform. This is done by accessing vendor profiles to identify the workflows to deploy hardware/software associated with vendors. The applicant only uses the term “vendor profiles” in paragraphs 99 and 104 of their disclosure. These paragraphs do not provide any description of a vendor profile or the type of information that a vendor profile would contain in order to allow for identification of workflows to deploy “hardware/software”. Recall that paragraph 69 states the inventory management system 404 comprises a Blue Planet Inventory system provided by the company Blueplanet but product information cited in this office action shows that the “vendor profiles” disclosed in paragraph 105 and 110 are not inherent to Blueplanet’s products and therefore would have to be described by the applicant. It is not possible to infer what the applicant’s invention is doing to “identify the workflows to deploy hardware/software associated with a vendor” because the disclosure does not provide any description of the process of identifying workflows/operations that correspond to deploying hardware/software associated with a vendor.
Further, the disclosure does not provide any details about how the workflow engine 402, disclosed as a Cisco BPA software, interacts with the workflow management component 406, as described in paragraph 104. The only description of the workflow management component 406 is that it is “configured to manage one or more workflows to be carried out by the workflow engine 402” (see paragraph 71). There is no disclosure, however, of how the workflow management component is “configured” to manage workflows or what such management even comprises. A review of the Cisco BPA software data sheet (cited in this office action), does not show that interfacing with a “workflow management component” as an inherent feature of the Cisco software which the applicant’s invention relies on to embody the workflow engine.
The final sentence of paragraph 111 states that workflow engine 402 may perform the C-RAN operations by orchestrating the execution of the workflows that include ZTP operations for one or more reconfiguring the computer environment, RUs, CSRs, DUs, CUs, and the like. Paragraph 111 establishes that the identified workflows from step 704 include ZTP operations that are specific to reconfiguring the computer environment, RUs, CSRs, DUs, CUs, and the like but the applicant never actually discloses a step of identifying the computer environment, RUs, CSRs, DUs, CUs, and the like that would be necessary in order to know which workflows to determine that identify the operations in step 704. The disclosed workflows for C-RAN operations are clearly specific to components of the network but the applicant’s disclosure is completely silent as to how the invention determines what components they are selecting workflows to perform C-RAN operations on. This is clearly a critical step that is completely omitted from the applicant’s disclosure.
Section 2161.01 of the MPEP states the following:
Similarly, original claims may lack written description when the claims define the invention in functional language specifying a desired result but the specification does not sufficiently describe how the function is performed or the result is achieved. For software, this can occur when the algorithm or steps/procedure for performing the computer function are not explained at all or are not explained in sufficient detail (simply restating the function recited in the claim is not necessarily sufficient). In other words, the algorithm or steps/procedure taken to perform the function must be described with sufficient detail so that one of ordinary skill in the art would understand how the inventor intended the function to be performed. See MPEP §§ 2163.02 and 2181, subsection IV.
The applicant is claiming the function of identifying operations which is disclosed as including determining one or more functions to perform a C-RAN operations but there is no disclosure of how this is actually done. Section 2161.01 of the MPEP indicates that such a lack of description of how the claimed function is performed or the result is achieved should be rejected under 35 USC section 112(a). The applicant’s disclosure of identifying using a vendor profile is not sufficient because the applicant does not provide any detail about the format or content of a vendor profile or how it is used to identify workflows/operations. The applicant merely states that it is used to identify without any explanation as to how. The applicant’s disclosure is clearly void of any technical description of how to perform this claimed “identifying” function and thus lacks the “sufficient detail” required by the MPEP.
Written Description Issue #3
Claims 5 and 13 claims the following:
performing a validation, wherein the validation is one or more of a pre-check validation that validates, prior to provisioning the DUs that one or more software is ready in an inventory management component for deployment, or that information regarding a computer host is ready in a network management component, a data readiness before performing the second operations to provision the DUs, a validation that validates the provisioning of the DUs, or a post-check validation that validates a successful completion of the operations.
There is no disclosure in paragraph 22 and 122 that pre-check validation includes validation that “one or more software is ready in an inventory management component for deployment” and the applicant did not provide any explanation for support for this amendment in their 11/10/2025 response.
Paragraph 22 states that “individual validation apps” are relied upon to perform the claimed “pre-check” validation. There is no description of these apps or what exactly they do to perform validation. Paragraph 122 references “validation information” that “may indicate whether the precheck passed or did not pass” but provides no description of what this “validation information” comprises. Additionally, there is nothing disclosed about validating “data readiness before performing” the claimed “second operations”. Such detail is not disclosed. The applicant’s description of a validation app, which is used to perform the claimed validation, clearly does not comply with the guidance given in section 2161.01(I) of the MPEP because the applicant did not explain how the validation app actually works.
Written Description Issue #4
Claim 6 features the following limitation:
selecting, by the one or more processors, one or more artifacts from the first vendor to deploy within the data center, wherein the selecting includes accessing a repository configured to store artifacts based on vendor profiled and artifact profiles
Claim 19 features the following limitation:
selecting, by the one or more processors, one or more artifacts to deploy from the first vendor within at least one or more computer environments, wherein the selecting includes accessing a repository configured to store artifacts based on vendor profiled and artifact profiles
The applicant does not provide any description of how the applicant’s invention actually determines what artifacts to select to deploy. Paragraph 101-107 discuss the deployment of artifacts but they do not actually provide any disclosure of how it is determined which artifacts to select to deploy in either a data center or computer environment. The applicant provides no description of criteria for defining how the claimed selection is made. This limitation appears to be lifted from application 18/483,890 which shows such an explicit step (706) however the current application did not actually contemplate such a step as being part of any disclosed process.
Paragraph 105 states that repository 714 can store various data such as vendor profiles and artifacts profiles but there is no description of a selection step including accessing such data from a repository as now claimed.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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, 9, and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) based upon a public use or sale or other public availability of the invention.
Claim 1 covers a determination to perform provision of O-RAN components, identifying operations to perform the provisioning, and executing those operations.
The claimed “determining” is described in paragraph 109 of the applicant’s disclosure:
[0109] At 802, a determination to perform C-RAN provisioning is made. In some examples, a request is received from NOC 210 provided to workflow engine 402 and/or deployment engine 608 to initiate the C-RAN provisioning. In other examples, the C-RAN provisioning is automatically triggered (e.g., by the workflow engine 402) based on an occurrence of one or more events.
Both the NOC (Network Operations Center) 210 and workflow engine 402 are disclosed as work of another. Paragraph 56 states that NOC 210 “may be provided by a vendor to the 5G O-RAN” so the functionality of NOC 210 is invented by the vendor referred to in paragraph 56 and not the applicant. Paragraph 70 states that “workflow engine 402 comprises a Cisco Business Process Automation Service (BPA)”. Paragraph 109 is describing the claimed determination as covering two elements, which the applicant discloses they did not invention, interacting with each other.
The only disclosure of accessing inventory data is through the use of software from Blue Planet Inventory, which is disclosed as available third party software.
The identifying step is described in paragraph 110:
[0110] At 804, the operations/workflows to perform the C-RAN provisioning are determined. In some examples, the workflow engine 402 may communicate with the workflow management system 406, and/or the inventory management system 404 to identify the workflows/operations to perform. For instance, the workflow engine 402 may access vendor profiles from repository 614 to identify the workflows to deploy hardware/software associated with a vendor. In some cases, different workflows can be associated with the different vendors. In this way, the workflow engine 402 can access and orchestrate the execution of the workflows for that particular vendor and/or the type of operation desired to perform. The workflows/operations may identify the artifact(s) to deploy. As discussed above, the repository 714 may include tested artifacts from different vendors that are approved to deploy within a production environment. For example, a vendor may have artifacts within the repository 614 for CSRs, DUs, CUs, RUs, and the like.
The applicant has disclosed that the workflow engine 402 (software of Cisco Systems) may communicate with the inventory management system 404 to identify the operations to perform. In paragraph 69 the applicant describes the inventory management component 404 as a “Blue Planet Inventory (BPI) system provided by Blueplanet”. Therefore, the disclosed identifying covers two pieces of software, that the applicant discloses they did not invent, interacting together to perform the claimed identification of operations.
The final limitation of the claim executes the identified operations via a transport layer. The first operation claimed is an operation that accesses a distributed unit artifact that is supplied by the first vendor. The language of the claim is clear that the artifact is supplied by the first vendor and thus not invented by the applicant. The accessing is disclosed as being performed by workflow engine 402, which is invented by Cisco Systems. Thus, the execution of the operation of executing an operation to access a DU artifact supplied by a first vendor is not disclosed as being invented by the applicant. The second operation covers operations that remotely provision DUs supplied by the vendor. Paragraph 113 is clear that the workflow engine 402, which is invented by Cisco Systems, configures the computing environment to specification set by the vendor, thus the inventor is disclosing that their technology is not involved. Paragraph 116 states that provisioning DUs comprises installing a vendor’s software, thus the vendor and not the applicant is the inventor of this step. Paragraph 41 makes it clear that well known Kubernetes solutions are used to perform this execution via a transport layer.
In conclusion, claim 1 covers using functions of software invented by another and thus covers “admitted prior art” as the concept is described in sections 2129 and 2152.03 of the MPEP. Any argument that the applicant’s invention is somehow “automating” the use of known software would not be compelling based on section 2144.04(III) of the MPEP.
Claims 9 covers the same identifying and executing covered by claim 1 and is thus not patentable over applicant admitted prior art for the same reasoning.
Claim 15 covers the same determining, identifying, and executing covered by claim 1 and is thus not patentable over applicant admitted prior art for the same reasoning.
Claim(s) 9-11, 14-17, 19, and 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by U.S. Patent Number 11,800,404 to Yang et al.
As to claim 9, Yang teaches a system including configured to perform cloud radio access network (C-RAN) zero-touch provisioning (ZTP) of open radio access network (0-RAN) components (Figures 18 and 5), wherein the system comprises: one or more processors that perform operations including to: access inventory data to identify one or more O-RAN components for provisioning (col. 14, lines 19-32 and col. 32, lines 46-55 describe inventory data which may be accessed for the purpose of identifying O-RAN components to provision); identify operations to perform open radio access network (0-RAN) components supplied by a first vendor of two or more vendors, wherein the operations include first operations to provision distributed units (DUs) supplied by the first vendor (the client is providing software and thus acting as a first vendor) within a DU host server system at a data center that is coupled to one or more associated radio units (RUs) via a transport layer (col. 32, lines 46-55 and Figure 5); and execute the operations (col. 32, lines 46-55) via the transport layer (see col. 11, line 14-col. 12, line 2, Kubernetes can be used by the data center just as disclosed by the applicant in paragraph 41, also the communication shown in Figure 18 is clearly implemented via a transport layer in a network).
As to claim 15, Yang teaches a non-transitory computer-readable medium configured to facilitate cloud radio access network (C-RAN) provisioning of open radio access network (0-RAN) components (Figures 18 and 5), and wherein the non- transitory computer-readable medium, when executed by a computer, causes the computer to: access inventory data to identify one or more O-RAN components for provisioning (col. 14, lines 19-32 and col. 32, lines 46-55 describe inventory data which may be accessed for the purpose of identifying O-RAN components to provision); determine, at a first location (client 1810 in Figure 18) that is remote from a data center (Provider network service 1812 in Figure 18) that hosts a distributed unit (DU) host server system (RPPS 570 in Figure 5), to perform C-RAN ZTP of one or more O-RAN components (ref. no. 1814), supplied by a first vendor of two or more vendors (the client supplying software acts as a first vendor); identify, based on the first vendor, operations to perform the C-RAN ZTP, wherein the operations include first operations to provision distributed units (DUs) supplied by the first vendor, within the DU host server system at a data center that is separate from one or more associated radio units (RUs) (col. 32, lines 46-55 and Figure 5); and execute the operations (col. 32, Lines 46-55) via a transport layer (see col. 11, line 14-col. 12, line 2, Kubernetes can be used by the data center just as disclosed by the applicant in paragraph 41, also the communication shown in Figure 18 is clearly implemented via a transport layer in a network)
As to claims 10 and 16, see col. 32, lines 46-55.
As to claims 11 and 17, see col. 12, line 6-35 and col. 15, lines 17-43.
As to claims 14 and 20, see col. 32, lines 46-53.
As to claim 19, see Figure 18, the deployed components are considered artifacts based on vendors and hosts. The information described in col. 14, lines 19-32 and col. 32, lines 46-55 reads on the concept of vendor and artifact profiles which are not defined in any manner by the applicant.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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.
Claim(s) 1-3 and 6-8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Patent Number 11,800,404 to Yang et al. in view of U.S. Patent Application Publication Number 2024/0078172 by Duggal et al.
As to claim 1, Yang teaches a method for provisioning of open radio access network (O-RAN) components, the method, comprising: determining, by one or more processors located at a first location (client 1810 in Figure 18) that is different from second locations of base stations (ref. no. 554 in Figure 5) and at least one third location of at least one data center that hosts a DU host server system (RPPS 570 in Figure 5), wherein the at least one data center is coupled to the base stations via a transport layer (col. 14, line 55-col. 15, lines 16 the WAN connection provides transport layer services), to perform provisioning of one or more O-RAN components supplied by a first vendor (col. 32, lines 46 and 47, the client provides software and thus acts as a “first vendor”, see also col. 14, lines 19-24) of two or more vendors (ref. no. 1814); access inventory data to identify one or more O-RAN components for provisioning (col. 14, lines 19-32 and col. 32, lines 46-55 describe inventory data which may be accessed for the purpose of identifying O-RAN components to provision); identifying, by the one or more processors operations to perform the provisioning based on data associated with the first vendor, wherein the operations include operations that remotely provision distributed units (DUs) supplied by the first vendor within the DU host server system that is separate from the base stations and one or more associated radio units (RUs) deployed at one or more of the base stations (col. 32, line 46-col. 33, line 3); and executing, by the one or more processors, the operations (col. 32, line 46-col. 33, line 3) via the transport layer (see col. 11, line 14-col. 12, line 2, Kubernetes can be used by the data center just as disclosed by the applicant in paragraph 41, also the communication shown in Figure 18 is clearly implemented via a transport layer in a network) however Yang does not explicitly teach a first operation to access a DU artifact supplied by a first vendor from a repository.
Duggal teaches provisioning O-RAN components including a first operation to access a DU artifact supplied by a first vendor from a repository (paragraphs 351, 356, and 424).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art in the O-RAN management field at the time of the applicant’s invention to combine the teachings of Yang regarding deploying software at various layers of the 0-RAN with the teachings of Duggal regarding accessing a DU artifact supplied by a first vendor from a repository because such artifacts described by Duggal would allow the system of Yang to efficiently configure the network in order to apply the DU software described. The specific teachings of Dugal provide a solution to the broader framework discussed in Yang.
As to claim 2, see col. 32, lines 46-55 of Yang.
As to claim 3, see col. 12, line 6-35 and col. 15, lines 17-43 of Yang.
As to claim 6, see Figure 18 of Yang, the deployed components are considered artifacts based on vendors and hosts. The information described in col. 14, lines 19-32 and col. 32, lines 46-55 reads on the concept of vendor and artifact profiles which are not defined in any manner by the applicant. See also paragraphs 351, 356, and 424 of Duggal.
As to claim 7, see col. 18, lines 31-63 of Yang.
As to claim 8, see col. 32, lines 46-53 of Yang.
Claim(s) 12, 13, and 18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Patent Number 11,800,404 to Yang et al. in view of U.S. Patent Application Publication Number 2023/0086473 by Deliwala et al.
As to claims 12 and 18, Yang teaches the subject matter of claims 10 and 15 however Yang does not explicitly teach the claimed validation technique.
Figure 9 shows of Deliwala shows the claimed validation technique.
It would have been obvious to those of ordinary skill in the network provisioning art at the time of the applicant’s filing to combine the teachings of Yang regarding RAN swapping with the teachings of Deliwala regarding validating whether components are provisioned successfully because Deliwala provides a generalized computing technique for resolving errors that is applicable to any error situations that would occur when implementing the pipelines of Yang.
As to claim 13, the procedure for implementing Figure 9 of Deliwala (paragraph 88) is considered a “validation app” that validates provisioning of resources and could cover DUs provisioned in Yang, as explained in the rejections of claim 12. The Examiner notes that the applicant discloses in paragraph 121 of their disclosure that individual validation apps must be developed for each work flow so clearly the technology of the applications themselves are beyond the scope of the disclosed invention. Those of ordinary skill will recognize that causing an app that is developed by someone else to execute is not novel.
Claim(s) 4 and 5 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Patent Number 11,800,404 to Yang et al. in view of U.S. Patent Application Publication Number 2024/0078172 by Duggal et al. in further view of U.S. Patent Application Publication Number 2023/0086473 by Deliwala et al.
Claims 4 and 5 are rejected for the same reasoning as claims 12 and 13.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DOUGLAS B BLAIR whose telephone number is (571)272-3893. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 9am-5pm.
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/DOUGLAS B BLAIR/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2454