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 .
DETAILED ACTION
Response to Amendment
Applicant’s “Amendment” filed on 01/13/2026 has been considered.
Claims 1, 10, and 16 are amended. Claims 1-20 remain pending in this application and an action on the merits follow.
Applicant’s response by virtue of amendment to claims has overcome the Examiner’s rejection under 35 USC § 112.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of 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 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by U.S. Patent No. 10,417,728 to Yoggi et al.
With regard to claims 1, 10, and 16, Yoggi discloses a shipping management system comprising:
a processor (Fig. 1A, 1B, col. 4, lines 20-25, processor-based open systems); and
a non-transitory computer readable medium storing instructions executed by the processor that cause the processor to perform operations, the operations comprising (Fig. 1A, 1B, col. 4, lines 48-53, it should be appreciated that a plurality of such devices may be provided with respect to postal services system 110A, such as to facilitate serving a number of requests for indicia (e.g., a plurality of bulk indicia requests from the same of different users)):
receiving a first request for postage indicia from a first user for an account associated with a shipper for a first order (abstract, Fig. 4, col. 6, lines 58-66 and col. 20, line 8-15, Operation of the illustrated embodiment of flow 200A supports generating multiple indicia in a same secure environment session requested by a same, single user. Accordingly, at block 201 postage client 141A gathers multiple postage indicia requests for the user and composes one or more bulk postage indicia requests. Additionally or alternatively, the indicia generated in the same secure environment session may comprise a plurality of indicia requested by multiple different users.);
receiving a second request for postage indicia from a second user for the account associated with the shipper at a same time as the first request for a second order, wherein first request for postage indicia is distinct from the second request for postage indicia (abstract, Fig. 4, col. 2, lines 41-49, col. 6, lines 58-66 and col. 20, line 8-15, one or more bulk postage indicia requests. Additionally or alternatively, the indicia generated in the same secure environment session may comprise a plurality of indicia requested by multiple different users. Another example of a use scenario which may require appreciable time for generating a plurality of indicia is that of a multiuser postage meter, such as in the case an enterprise postage meter or a centralized postage meter serving a number of clients (e.g., remote retail kiosks, post office point of sale terminals, etc.). In such a scenario, multiple users (e.g., using different client systems) may request postage indicia generation simultaneously or in close temporal proximity. );
placing the first request and the second request in a first wait line (col. 12, lines 27-38, queuing user requests for postage indicia);
selecting to process the first request for postage indicia (Fig. 4, col. 21, lines 56-59, the large bulk request may be divided into two or more smaller batch requests as discussed with respect to operation at block 403 above);
locking the account associated with the shipper while processing the first request for postage indicia to prevent the second request for postage indicia from accessing the account associated with the shipper (col. 21, lines 60-col. 22, lines 14, One or more virtual PSD record of the pool of virtual PSDs to be used with respect to the account serving the large bulk request are preferably locked at block 410 (e.g., to prevent its simultaneous use with respect to another crypto module, whereby value represented thereby may be consumed more than once) . The cryptocards to which the virtual PSD information is provided are preferably locked to prevent attempts to simultaneously configure the cryptocards as another/different PSD in response to another request. );
determining that an account balance of the account associated with the shipper is greater than a threshold (col. 8, lines 43-47, a PSD for providing services authorized with respect to the requesting user, etc. and that the virtual PSD has sufficient account value associated therewith to support generation of the requested postage indicia);
unlocking the account associated with the shipper (col. 21, lines 36-41, Having generated the postage indicia of all of the smaller batch requests, the updated virtual PSD record is offloaded from the PSD and unlocked at block 406. Additionally, the cryptocard is preferably unlocked and the check point record is updated and unlocked to thereby make the cryptocard available for use in serving a different request); and
generating a first postage indicia for the first order (col. 21, lines 26-35, the postage indicia for each of the smaller batch requests are generated and obtained).
With regard to claims 2, 11, and 17, Yoggi discloses selecting, by the processor, to process the second request for postage indicia (Fig. 4, col. 21, lines 56-59);
locking, by the processor, the account associated with the shipper while processing the second request for postage indicia to prevent other requests for postage indicia in the first wait line from accessing the account associated with the shipper (col. 21, lines 60-col. 22, lines 14);
determining, by the processor, that the account balance of the account associated with the shipper is greater than the threshold (col. 8, lines 43-47);
unlocking, by the processor, the account associated with the shipper (col. 21, lines 36-41); and
generating, by the processor, a second postage indicia for the second order (col. 21, lines 26-35).
With regard to claims 3, 12, and 18, Yoggi discloses the first postage indicia and the second postage indicia are generated in parallel (col. 20, lines 21-38, facilitating serving multiple requests or otherwise generating multiple indicia at a time in parallel).
With regard to claims 4-5, 13, and 19, Yoggi discloses placing, by the processor, the first request and the second request in a second wait line after the first postage indicia and the second postage indicia are generated; selecting, by the processor, to process the first request from the second wait line; locking, by the processor, the account associated with the shipper while processing the first request to prevent the second request from accessing the account associated with the shipper; determining, by the processor, that the account balance associated with the shipper remains greater than the threshold after the first postage indicia is generated; unlocking, by the processor, the account associated with the shipper; selecting, by the processor, to process the second request from the second wait line; locking, by the processor, the account associated with the shipper while processing the second request; determining, by the processor, that the account balance associated with the shipper remains greater than the threshold after the second postage indicia is generated; and unlocking, by the processor, the account associated with the shipper (Fig. 4, col. 8, lines 43-47, col. 20, line 8-15, col. 21, lines 26-col. 22, lines 14, Examine notes that a new bulk request (i.t., first request and a new second request) can be placed/queued into the system to be processed and the multiple postage indicia can be generated.).
With regard to claims 6, 14, and 20, Yoggi discloses the locking comprises an exclusive lock such that the determining is the only operation that is performed by the shipping management system with respect to the account associated with the shipper (col. 8, lines 32-35, The selected crypto module may thereafter be locked for operation of the secure environment session to generate the multiple postage indicia.).
With regard to claim 7, Yoggi discloses the locking comprises a system-wide lock across multiple servers to ensure that only a single request is accessing the account associated with the shipper at a time (col. 8, lines 48-53, The selected virtual PSD information of virtual PSD information 122-124 may be locked (e.g., to prevent its simultaneous use with respect to another crypto module, whereby value represented thereby may be consumed more than once) and the selected virtual PSD information provided to cryptocard 125 in order to configure cryptocard 125 for operation as a particular PSD.).
With regard to claims 8 and 15, Yoggi discloses pre-processing, by the processor, the first request for postage indicia and the second request for postage indicia to analyze the first request and the second request for errors (col. 7, lines 32-55, col. 14, lines 63-col. 15, lines 12, Postage web service 160 of embodiments may operate to analyze the postage indicia requests in order to associate appropriate postage indicia requests in a same bulk postage indicia request. Examiner notes that Postage web service 160 of embodiments may operate to analyze the postage indicia requests can be considered as “pre-processing…the first request for postage indicia and the second request …analyze the first request and the second request”. Such authentication may operate to identify the user as being authorized to receive the services of postal services system 110A. the bulk postage indicia request is received and processed for PSD operation at block 203 of the illustrated embodiment. For example, assuming the user authentication is successful, bridge server 130 may pass the bulk postage indicia request, or some portion thereof, to postage server 120 for generating the multiple postage indicia. Examiner notes that in one scenario, user authentication is unsuccessful, bridge server may not pass the bulk postage indicia request, which can be considered as “analyze the first request and the second request for errors”).
With regard to claim 9, Yoggi discloses the first wait line is implemented as a data structure comprising a queue, a stack, or a tree (col. 14, lines 11-14, postage indicia requests from client devices 140B-140D and store the postage indicia requests in a memory (e.g., postage request queue 161) for creating a bulk request for multiple indicia).
Response to Arguments
Applicants' arguments filed on 01/13/2026 have been fully considered but they are not fully persuasive especially in light of the previously reference used in the rejections.
Applicants remark that “Yoggi does not disclose a first request for postage indicia from a first user for an account associated with a shipper for a first order… a second request for postage indicia from a second user for the account associated with the shipper at a same time as the first request for a second order, wherein first request for postage indicia is distinct from the second request for postage indicia”.
Examiner directs Applicants' attention to the office action above.
Conclusion
Please refer to form 892 for cited references.
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any extension fee pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication from the examiner should be directed to Ariel Yu whose telephone number is 571-270-3312. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Friday 9:00am-5:00pm EST.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Obeid Fahd A can be reached on 571-270-3324. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/ARIEL J YU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3627