DETAILED ACTION
Response to Amendment
Applicant’s amendment, filed 02/03/2026, was received and entered. Dependent claim 15 was cancelled. New claim 21 was added. As the results, claims 1-14 and 16-21 are pending in this application at this time. Independent claims 1, 8 and 14, each was amended with the features of cancelled claim 15 in order to put the Application in a condition of allowance. Furthermore, it is noticed that Applicant further amended, in claims 1, 8 and 14, the terms “future communications” to “communications”, which made scope of claims broader and/or changed scope of the claims. Therefore, Examiner performed updated searches and found new reference and new Office Action is set forth below.
Allowable Subject Matter
The indicated allowability of claims 1-2, 7-8, 12 and 14 is withdrawn in view of the newly discovered reference(s) to Sherstinsky et al. (US 7,899,867), Wang et al. (US 6,934,543) and Cristian et al. (US 20230292847). Rejections based on the newly cited reference(s) follow.
Double Patenting
The Applicant’s Terminal Disclaimer (TD) was electronically filed, received and approved. As the results, the nonstatutory double patenting rejection is overcome and withdrawn.
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.
Claims 1, 8-9 and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Peeler (US 2017/0026404) in view of Sherstinsky et al. (US 7,899,867).
Regarding claim 1, Peeler teaches a method (i.e., a method of presenting with a challenge to a calling party), comprising:
transmitting a challenge to a sender (i.e., an external challenge module 340 issues a challenge to a calling party; para. [0043]);
determining that an unsuccessful response to the challenge is received from the sender (i.e., determining that if a challenged calling party provides an incorrect response; para. [0045]); and
responsive to determining that the unsuccessful response is received from the sender, blocking routing of future communications from a telephone number associated with the sender (i.e., a routing and call processing module 315 then blocks the pending call from the calling party that has provided the incorrect response; para. [0045] and the suspected calling party is blocked (i.e., remaining in a blocked caller list) for specified time duration; para. [0036]).
It should be noticed that Peeler teaches the feature of the unsuccessful response comprising a single incorrect response to a challenge sent to the calling party. Peeler failed to teach the unsuccessful response comprising a number of unsuccessful responses. However, Sherstinsky et al. (Hereinafter “Sherstinsky”) teaches techniques for processing instant message (IM) received from a sender destined for IM recipient. A challenge is sent to the sender (col.14, lines 50-60). A maximum number of wrong answers (unsuccessful responses) allowed may be set to block the communications, such as IM messages from the sender (col.15, lines 13-18 and lines 29-33).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the features of the unsuccessful response comprising a number of unsuccessful responses, as taught by Sherstinsky, into view of Peer in order to limit the time for responses received from the sender.
Regarding claim 8, Peeler teaches a system (i.e., a computer system 700, as shown in figure 7), comprising:
one or more memories (i.e., memory 720; para. [0049]); and
one or more processors (i.e., processors 710A-710N; para. [0048]), the one or more processors configured to execute instructions stored in the one or more memories to:
transmit a challenge to a sender (i.e., an external challenge module 340 issues a challenge to a calling party; para. [0043]);
determine that an unsuccessful response to the challenge is received from the sender (i.e., determining that if a challenged calling party provides an incorrect response; para. [0045]); and
responsive to determining that the unsuccessful response is received from the sender, blocking routing of future communications from a telephone number associated with the sender (i.e., a routing and call processing module 315 then blocks the pending call from the calling party that has provided the incorrect response; para. [0045] and the suspected calling party is blocked (i.e., remaining in a blocked caller list) for specified time duration; para. [0036]).
It should be noticed that Peeler teaches the feature of the unsuccessful response comprising a single incorrect response to a challenge sent to the calling party. Peeler failed to teach the unsuccessful response comprising a number of unsuccessful responses. However, Sherstinsky teaches techniques for processing instant message (IM) received from a sender destined for IM recipient. A challenge is sent to the sender (col.14, lines 50-60). A maximum number of wrong answers (unsuccessful responses) allowed may be set to block the communications, such as IM messages from the sender (col.15, lines 13-18 and lines 29-33).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the features of the unsuccessful response comprising a number of unsuccessful responses, as taught by Sherstinsky, into view of Peer in order to limit the time for responses received from the sender.
Regarding claim 9, Sherstinsky further teaches limitations of the claim, such as an assessment module 315 determines whether the calling party is moved from the suspect list to the blocked caller list or “a do-not-allow list” and the assessment module 315 updates to both lists (para. [0045]).
Regarding claim 12, Sherstinsky further teaches limitations of the claim, such as “…the maximum number of wrong answers allowed…” in col.15, lines 11-18.
Regarding claim 14, Sherstinsky teaches one or more non-transitory computer-readable media storing instructions operable to cause one or more processors to perform operations comprising:
transmitting a challenge to a sender (i.e., an external challenge module 340 issues a challenge to a calling party; para. [0043]);
determining that an unsuccessful response to the challenge is received from the sender (i.e., determining that if a challenged calling party provides an incorrect response; para. [0045]); and
responsive to determining that the unsuccessful response is received from the sender, blocking routing of future communications from a telephone number associated with the sender (i.e., a routing and call processing module 315 then blocks the pending call from the calling party that has provided the incorrect response; para. [0045] and the suspected calling party is blocked (i.e., remaining in a blocked caller list) for specified time duration; para. [0036]).
It should be noticed that Peeler teaches the feature of the unsuccessful response comprising a single incorrect response to a challenge sent to the calling party. Peeler failed to teach the unsuccessful response comprising a number of unsuccessful responses. However, Sherstinsky et al. (Hereinafter “Sherstinsky”) teaches techniques for processing instant message (IM) received from a sender destined for IM recipient. A challenge is sent to the sender (col.14, lines 50-60). A maximum number of wrong answers (unsuccessful responses) allowed may be set to block the communications, such as IM messages from the sender (col.15, lines 13-18 and lines 29-33).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the features of the unsuccessful response comprising a number of unsuccessful responses, as taught by Sherstinsky, into view of Peer in order to limit the time for responses received from the sender.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the feature of the unsuccessful response comprising a single incorrect response to a challenge sent to the calling party
Claims 2 and 21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Peeler (US 2017/0026404) in view of Sherstinsky et al. (US 7,899,867) as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Cristian et al. (US 2023/0292847).
Regarding claims 2 and 21, Peeler and Sherstinsky, in combination, teach all subject matters as claimed above, except for the feature of increasing the duration of time with each additional unsuccessful response from the telephone number. However, Cristian et al. (hereinafter “Cristian”) teaches a system and method of authenticating a user based on a number of times to input authentication information as either successful or unsuccessful results. The method may comprises increasing a duration of time delay period after each successive unsuccessful result of the authentication (para. [0058]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the feature of increasing the duration of time with each additional unsuccessful response from the telephone number, as taught by Cristian, into view of Peeler and Sherstinsky in order to increase the blocked duration of time for future calls from the telephone number.
Claim 3 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Peeler (US 2017/0026404) in view of Sherstinsky et al. (US 7,899,867) as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Jing et al. (US 2021/0344730 as recited in the previous Office Action).
Regarding claim 3, Peeler and Sherstinsky, in combination, teach all subject matters as claimed above, except for the feature of the pre-recorded message indicating, to the caller or sender, the blocking of the call. However, Jing et al. (hereinafter “Jing”) teaches a system for handling call requests, as shown in figure 1. The system comprises message application server (MAS) 101 to handle call request signals of incoming calls from callers or senders. If a call request is not allowed and to be connected or established to a recipient, the MAS may provide a notification to the calling party that the call was blocked (para. [0041]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the feature of transmitting a notification to the sender indicating the blocking of the routing of the future communications, as taught by Jing, into view of Peeler and Sherstinsky in order to notify the sender that the future calls will be blocked.
Claims 4, 17 and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Peeler (US 2017/0026404) in view of Sherstinsky et al. (US 7,899,867) as applied to claims 1 and 14 above, and further in view of Cardillo et al. (US 2012/0284026, also cited in the previous Office Action).
Regarding claims 4 and 17, Peeler and Sherstinsky, in combination, teach all subject matters as claimed above, except for features of determining a trust level associated with the telephone number; and determining a number of challenges to transmit to the sender based on the trust level. However, Cardillo et al. (hereinafter “Cardillo”) teaches a speaker verification system comprising speaker identification module 212, as shown in figure 2. The speaker identification module 212 determines a number of challenge questions to ask a caller based on a score, such as score 222, which is generated by the speaker identification module 212 (para. [0039] and [0046)).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the features of determining a trust level (i.e., the score) associated with the telephone number is other than a high trust level and determining a number of challenges to transmit to the sender, as taught by Cardillo, into view of Peeler and Sherstinsky in order to screening and preventing unwanted or spoofed calls from unknown callers to connect to devices of called parties.
Regarding claim 19, Cardillo further teaches limitations of the claim , such as a number of two or more challenge to be transmitted to the sender in paragraph [0046].
Claim 5 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Peeler (US 2017/0026404) in view of Sherstinsky et al. (US 7,899,867) as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Reece et al. (US 2009/0069084, also cited in the previous Office Action).
Regarding claim 5, Peeler and Sherstinsky, in combination, teach all subject matters as claimed above, except for features of storing a record of the unsuccessful response. However, Reece et al. (hereinafter “Reece”) teaches the features in para.[0051] for a purpose of a generating summarized statistics report.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the features of storing a record of the unsuccessful response, as taught by Reece, into view of Peeler and Sherstinsky in order to manage a number of unsuccessful responses entered by the caller.
Claims 6 and 16 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Peeler (US 2017/0026404) in view of Sherstinsky et al. (US 7,899,867) as applied to claim 14 above, and further in view of Garg et al. (US 2022/0377172).
Regarding claims 6 and 16, Peeler and Sherstinsky, in combination, teach all subject matters as claimed above. Sherstinsky further teaches IM clients 102 (senders) as shown in figure 1. The IM clients 102 connect to and send IM messages to IM module 106. The IM module 106 then connects to and send the IM messages other IM clients in order to reach IM clients 112 (col.4, lines 25-30; col.6, lines 30-37). Thus, the IM client (recipient) may receive communications from one or more senders (other senders). Sherstinsky failed to clearly teach features of determining whether to challenge the sender based on whether the communication includes a routing permission code, wherein the sender is not challenged if the communication includes the routing permission code. However, Garg et al. (hereinafter “Garg”) teaches a recipient profile which may include historical communication metadata. The historical communication metadata may indicate the day of the week, time of day, geolocation, etc. as a routing permission code associated with the recipient. If a communication request from the originating device is initiated on the same the day of the week, time of day, geolocation, etc., the PPCV controller may forgo generating the Pol message (not to challenge the sender) and establishing the communication between the originating device and the recipient device (para. [0024] and [0026]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the features of determining whether to challenge the sender based on whether the communication includes a routing permission code, wherein the sender is not challenged if the communication includes the routing permission code, as taught by Garg, into view of Peeler and Sherstinsky in order to quickly detect the incoming call as wanted call and route it to the recipient.
Claim 7 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Peeler (US 2017/0026404) in view of Sherstinsky et al. (US 7,899,867) as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Wang et al. (US 6,934,543).
Regarding claim 7, Peeler and Sherstinsky, in combination, teach all subject matters as claimed above, except for the features of determining that a communication received from the sender does not include an indicium of a recipient, wherein the indicium of the recipient is other than a telephone number associated with the recipient; and transmitting the challenge in response to determining that the communication does not include the indicium of the recipient. However, (hereinafter “Wang”) teaches a system and method of establishing a telephone or other telecommunications (i.e., short messages or SMS) connection between at least two persons and filtering incoming calls from a calling unit (caller device) to a mobile subscriber unit (called party device). Wang further teaches, a flow charge in figure 2, that the user enters or provides inconvenient time period information between 12:00AM to 8:00AM. It should be understood that other convenient time ranges are between 8:01AM -11:59PM (read on indicium of a recipient). When an incoming call is received, the local time information may include a local time at 3:30AM (not and/or other than a telephone number), which does not include the indicium of a recipient (col.3, lines 1-17). If a call request of the incoming call from mobile subscriber unit A (sender) occurs at an inconvenient time (does not include the indicium of the recipient) for mobile subscriber unit B, an indication (read on a challenge) is sent or transmitted to the mobile subscriber unit A (sender) (col.3, lines 29-49).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the features of determining that a communication received from the sender does not include an indicium of a recipient, wherein the indicium of the recipient is other than a telephone number associated with the recipient; and transmitting the challenge in response to determining that the communication does not include the indicium of the recipient, as taught by Wang, into view of Peeler and Sherstinsky in order to indicate the status of the call and acquire further required correct or additional information data of the call.
Claim 10 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Peeler (US 2017/0026404) in view of Sherstinsky et al. (US 7,899,867) as applied to claim 8 above, and further in view of Jiron et al. (US 10,694,040, also cited in the previous Office Action).
Regarding claim 10, Peeler and Sherstinsky, in combination, teaches subject matters as claimed above, except for features of wherein the challenge is transmitted via Interactive Voice Response (IVR). However, Jiron et al. (hereinafter “Jiron”) teaches such feature, such as one of the IVR systems 22 may issue authentication challenges to the user of entity device 16A, as shown in figure 1; col.5, lines 20-28.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the features of wherein the challenge is transmitted via Interactive Voice Response (IVR), as taught by Jiron, into view of Peeler and Sherstinsky in order to verify the identification information of the sender.
Claim 11 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Peeler (US 2017/0026404) in view of Sherstinsky et al. (US 7,899,867) as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Wang et al. (US 11,399,094, also cited in the previous Office Action).
Regarding claim 11, Peeler and Sherstinsky, in combination, teaches subject matters as claimed above, except for features of transmitting another challenge to the sender upon receiving an incorrect response. However, Wang et al. (hereinafter “Wang”) teaches limitations of the claim, such as repeatedly transmitting a prompt, e.g., a trivial question, to a caller and the call can enter an answer corresponding to the trivial question (col.8, lines 6-14). If the provided answer is incorrect, another prompt or trivial question is transmitted to the caller until a number of incorrected answers entered and received from the caller exceeded a predetermined number (col.8, lines 60-65).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the features of transmitting another challenge to the sender upon receiving an incorrect response, as taught by Wang, into view of Peeler and Sherstinsky in order to successfully verify the identification information of the sender.
Claims 13 and 20 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Peeler (US 2017/0026404) in view of Sherstinsky et al. (US 7,899,867) as applied to claims 8 and 14 above, and further in view of Charlson et al. (US 2023/0224402, also cited in the previous Office Action).
Regarding claims 13 and 20, Peeler and Sherstinsky, in combination, teaches subject matters as claimed above, except for feature of determining to transmit the challenge based on the telephone number not having full attestation as verified by Secure Telephony Identity Revisited/Signature-based Handling of Asserted information using toKENs (STIR/SHAKEN) protocols. However, Charlson teaches an inbound call is verified by STIR/SHAKEN protocols and having one of testation levels of “A”, “B” and “C”. Charlson further teaches that a user is allowed to further transmitting a challenge or question to caller and receiving a response to the challenge or question from the caller (para. [0114]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the features of determining to transmit the challenge based on the telephone number not having full attestation as verified by Secure Telephony Identity Revisited/Signature-based Handling of Asserted information using toKENs (STIR/SHAKEN) protocols, as taught by Charlson, into view of Peeler and Sherstinsky in order to successfully verify the identification information of the sender.
Claim 18 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Peeler (US 2017/0026404) in view of Sherstinsky et al. (US 7,899,867) as applied to claim 14 above, and further in view of Alhadeff (US 2013/0080242, also cited in the previous Office Action).
Regarding claim 18, Peeler and Sherstinsky, in combination, teaches subject matters as claimed above, except for the feature of wherein determining that the unsuccessful response to the challenge is received comprises: determining that no response is received within a predetermined time window. However, Alhadeff teaches limitations of the claim, such as presenting a challenge to each of users and invoking a response from each of the users. Alhadeff further teaches a timer to ensure that each of the users provide the response to challenge within the predetermined period of time or time window. Finally, Alhadeff teaches the challenge-response module to determine whether the users entered a response or enter no response for the presented challenge (para. [0204]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the features of wherein determining that the unsuccessful response to the challenge is received comprises: determining that no response is received within a predetermined time window, as taught by Alhadeff, into view of Peeler and Sherstinsky in order to take an approximate active if no response transmitted from the sender.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see Applicant’s remarks, filed 02/03/2016 , with respect to the rejections of claims being rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of new references, such as Sherstinsky et al. (US 7,899,867), Cristian et al. (US 2023/0292847), etc, as discussed above.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to BINH TIEU whose telephone number is (571)272-7510. The examiner can normally be reached on 9-5. The Examiner’s fax number is (571) 273-7510 and E-mail address: BINH.TIEU@USPTO.GOV.
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/Binh Kien Tieu/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2694 Date: April 2026