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 .
Status of Application/Amendment/Claims
This Office action is in response to the communications filed on February 11, 2026.
Currently, claims 1-7 and 9-28 are pending and under examination on the merits in the instant application.
The following rejections are either newly applied or are reiterated and are the only rejections and/or objections presently applied to the instant application.
Response to Arguments and Amendments
Withdrawn Rejections
Any rejections/objections not repeated in this Office action are hereby withdrawn.
Terminal Disclaimer
The terminal disclaimer filed on February 11, 2026 disclaiming the terminal portion of any patent granted on this application which would extend beyond the expiration date of Application No. 18/933,178 has been reviewed and is accepted. The terminal disclaimer has been recorded.
Maintained Objections/Rejections
Priority
The denial of the priority filing date benefit for claims 1-7 and 9-28 remains effective for the reasons as set forth in the Office action mailed on August 11, 2025 and for the reasons stated below.
Applicant's arguments filed on February 11, 2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. Applicant argues that the instant claims are entitled to the prior-application filing date because the law does not require a prior-filed application should describe the nucleotide-level interaction as claimed in the instant case. Contrary to applicant’s argument, 35 U.S.C. 112(a) does require that the claimed subject matter “with all its claim limitations” must be adequately described in a patent application so as “to put the public in possession of what the applicant claims as the invention” and “to demonstrate that the patentee was in possession of the invention that is claimed.”
“One shows that one is “in possession’’ of the invention by describing the invention, with all its claim limitations, not that which makes it obvious.” Lockwood v. Am. Airlines, Inc., 107 F.3d 1565, 41 USPQ2d 1961 (Fed. Cir. 1997) (original emphasis in italics; emphasis added in bold).
See also MPEP §2163 for the following: “The written description requirement has several policy objectives. “[T]he essential goal of the description of the invention requirement is to clearly convey the information that an applicant has invented the subject matter which is claimed.” In re Barker, 559 F.2d 588, 592 n.4, 194 USPQ 470, 473 n.4 (CCPA 1977). Another objective is to put the public in possession of what the applicant claims as the invention. See Regents of the University of California v. Eli Lilly, 119 F.3d 1559, 1566, 43 USPQ2d 1398, 1404 (Fed. Cir. 1997), cert. denied, 523 U.S. 1089 (1998). The written description requirement implements the principle that a patent must describe the technology that is sought to be patented; the requirement serves both to satisfy the inventor ’s obligation to disclose the technologic knowledge upon which the patent is based, and to demonstrate that the patentee was in possession of the invention that is claimed." Capon v. Eshhar, 418 F.3d 1349, 1357, 76 USPQ2d 1078, 1084 (Fed. Cir. 2005). Further, the written description requirement promotes the progress of the useful arts by ensuring that patentees adequately describe their inventions in their patent specifications in exchange for the right to exclude others from practicing the invention for the duration of the patent’s term.” (emphasis added).
In view of the foregoing, the examiner strongly disagrees with applicant’s baseless allegation that the law does not require prior-filed applications to adequately describe the instantly claimed limitation that “the miR-187-3p directly inhibits expression of IL-6 or s100a1”, wherein the “direct” inhibition must involve nucleic acid (or nucleotide sequence)-mediated interaction. Note that the phrase “directly degrading or inhibiting” is disclosed in the instant specification in reference to the art-recognized scientific principle that “microRNAs function via base-pairing with complementary sequences within messenger RNA (mRNA) molecules.” See page 2 of the instant specification.
In the instant case, other than the mere assertion/allegation that the instant claims are entitled to prior-filed application filing dates, applicant failed to particularly point out a specific passage providing adequate written description support for the instantly claimed subject matter with all of claim limitations in the prior-filing applications. Hence, applicant’s asserted priority benefit remains denied for claims 1-7 and 9-28.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
Claims 6, 18, and 24 remain rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) as being indefinite for the reasons as set forth in the Office action mailed on August 11, 2025 and for the reasons stated below.
Applicant's arguments filed on February 11, 2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. Applicant argues that the claims as currently amended are sufficient to overcome the rejection. Contrary to applicant’s argument, claim 6 reciting “the method is for preventing myocardial dysfunction” conflicts with “the subject suffering from organ dysfunction”. That is, myocardial dysfunction in the subject who is already suffering from myocardial dysfunction as recited in claim 6 cannot be prevented as myocardial dysfunction is already present in the subject.
Regarding claim 18, applicant argues that the deletion of “sterols” is sufficient. In response, applicant is advised to reread the grounds of rejection for claim 18 as set forth in the last Office action as the amendment does not fully address the issues raised in the last Office action. That is, applicant did not provide any persuasive argument or effectively amend the claim pertaining to the species that are allegedly recited to qualify as an “ionizable cationic lipid”.
Regarding claim 24, applicant argues “the lipid carrier” has clear antecedent basis because claim 1 recites “a lipid nanoparticle carrier”. In response, “lipid carrier” is not the same as “lipid nanoparticle carrier”. Applicant’s refusal to amend the limitation in claim 24 is not found persuasive to overcome the rejection.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
Claims 1-7 and 9-28 remain rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) as failing to comply with the written description requirement for the reasons as set forth in the Office action mailed on August 11, 2025 and for the reasons stated below.
Applicant's arguments filed on February 11, 2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. Applicant argues that the instant claims comply with the written description requirement because the “3’-untranslated region” limitation has been deleted. In response, the mere deletion of the previously recited limitation such that “the miR-187-3p mimic binds 3’-untranslated region of IL-6 or s100a1” is not sufficient to render the rejected claims fully compliant with the written description requirement because the instant specification does not describe that the claimed miR-187-3p mimic “directly inhibits” IL-6 and S100A1, wherein the phrase “directly degrading or inhibiting” is disclosed in the instant specification in reference to the art-recognized scientific principle that “microRNAs function via base-pairing with complementary sequences within messenger RNA (mRNA) molecules.” See page 2 of the instant specification. That is, the instant specification must adequately describe the instantly claimed direct inhibition of IL-6 and S100A1 expression “via base-pairing with complementary sequences within messenger RNA” by the claimed mimic that is administered to a subject in need of sepsis treatment or sepsis-induced multiorgan dysfunction or failure prevention. Now, interestingly, the instant specification explicitly discloses on the record that “miR-187-3p decreases the expression of TNFa, we postulate IL-6 and S100A1, post-transcriptionally (binds to 3’ UTR leading to mRNA degradation)” (emphasis added). See page 58. Even more interestingly, page 60 expressly discloses “direct targeting of the IL-6 3’-UTR is a novel function of miR-187-3p.” (emphasis added). Taken together, it is prima facie apparent on the record as disclosed in the instant specification that the “directly inhibits” limitation now recited in the instant claims is no different from miR-187-3p mimic’s binding to the 3’ UTR of IL-6 and S100A1 as previously recited in light of the disclosure of the instant specification. Moreover, note that the rejection of record in the last Office action expressly stated that “it is clear that the art-recognized downregulation/inhibition of IL-6 by miR-187 is indirectly regulated thus is not directly regulated by the binding between the 3’ UTR of IL-6 and the seed sequence of miR-187.” See page 7 (original emphasis). Hence, applicant’s argument that the claims as amended are different from the previously examined claims is not found persuasive as evidenced by the fact that the claims as previously presented/examined were already interpreted to involve “direct” inhibition of the claimed targets by the claimed mimic.
Applicant argues that the examiner established this rejection based on the miRNA target prediction tools, which are not reliable and cannot be used to show that the instant co-inventors did not have possession of the claimed subject matter. Contrary to applicant’s argument, the instant rejection pertaining to the particular limitation that miR-187-3p should directly inhibit (via 3’ UTR binding through sequence complementarity) the recited targets was not solely based on the target prediction algorithms. Rather, the lack of relevant prior art knowledge pertaining to the aforementioned limitation was expressly stated to be objectively supported by the reputable publication by Rossato (PNAS, 2012, of record) as amply explained in detail in the last Office action. It is noted that any person of ordinary skill in the relevant art would perfectly understand that a miR-187-3p mimic indirectly, not directly, inhibits IL-6 via downregulation of NFKBIZ that is being directly regulated/bound by miR-187-3p as taught by Rossato at pages E3106 and E3108. Hence, the issues pertaining to the binding between miR-187-3p and the recited targets are established based on a reliable source and objective findings in reliable, solidly designed experiments performed by Rossato.
Applicant argues that the instant specification conveys applicant’s possession of the claimed subject matter by pointing to page 56, lines 12-15. In response, it is noted that the passage’s disclosure of “post-transcriptional inhibition” of IL6 and S100A1, which “are not found in Figures 8E and 8F” showing miR-187-3p’s predicted targets by “Tarbase 8.0 and miRTarbae v8.0”, is not adequately described to satisfy the instantly claimed limitation that “the miR-187-3p mimic directly inhibits expression of IL-6 or s100a1”, wherein the direct inhibition can be achieved only “post-transcriptionally (binds to 3’ UTR leading to mRNA degradation)” such that “direct targeting of the IL-6 3’-UTR is a novel function of miR-187-3p” as explicitly disclosed in the instant specification as already explained above. The passage pointed out by applicant does not whatsoever adequately support/describe/demonstrate such “post-transcriptional inhibition” of IL-6 and S100A1 by “direct targeting” of the 3’ UTR of IL-6 and S100A by the claimed miR-187-3p mimic, wherein a showing of valid, art-approved, art-recognized direct targeting between a miRNA’s seed sequence and the 3’ UTR of a target mRNA is not disclosed in the instant specification as amply explained in the last Office action, which is fully incorporated by reference herein. It is noted that consistent with the examiner’s findings set forth in the last Office action, Figure 8F of the instant application discloses S100A4, not S100A1, as one of the predicted targets of miR-187-3p.
Applicant argues that “the specification enables the claimed subject matter without undue experimentation.” The examiner fails to understand the relevance of applicant’s argument. Applicant’s attention is directed to the fact that the instant rejection is not an enablement rejection, but a written description rejection, which is distinct and separate from an enablement rejection. For applicant’s own edification, applicant’s attention is directed to MPEP §2161 for the following: “The written description requirement is separate and distinct from the enablement requirement.” (emphasis added). Hence, applicant’s argument bears no relevance to the instant written description rejection.
Although §1.132 declarations filed on February 11, 2026 are submitted to address the §103 rejection of record, the examiner would like to address the supplemental declaration herein so as to make the record clear pertaining to the lack of adequate written description support and the lack of possession of the claimed subject matter that requires the direct targeting/inhibiting of IL-6 or S100A1 by the claimed miR-187-3p mimic.
The supplemental declaration states that the IL-6 binding site for miR-187-3p is present in the coding region or across the coding region and the adjacent 3’ UTR, which is why none of the art-recognized algorithms using the 3’ UTR sequences predicted IL-6 as the direct target of miR-187-3p. In response, applicant’s attention is directed to the fact that the declaratory statements contained in the supplemental declaration are starkly contradictory to the disclosure of the instant application, which expressly discloses that it is the 3’ UTR of IL-6 that is purported to contain the binding site (the sequence being undisclosed) for miR-187-3p. Again, note that the instant specification expressly discloses “direct targeting of the IL-6 3’-UTR is a novel function of miR-187-3p.” See page 60 (emphasis added). Now, consistent with the non-disclosure of the specific miR-187-3p binding site sequence in the 3’ UTR of IL-6 in the instant specification, the instant co-inventors at best merely speculate that miR-187-3p may regulate IL-6 and A100A1 by binding to the 3’ UTR. See page 58 explicitly disclosing on the record that “miR-187-3p decreases the expression of TNFa, we postulate IL-6 and S100A1, post-transcriptionally (binds to 3’ UTR leading to mRNA degradation)” (emphasis added). This speculative disclosure without any nucleotide sequence disclosure within the 3’ UTR of IL-6 providing the asserted “direct targeting” by miR-187-3p is in stark contrast to the post-filing experimental disclosure submitted in “Exhibit A” and the statements in the supplemental declaration. As such, the applicants in the instant application have established on the record by submitting the §1.132 declarations that the information in the instant specification is incorrect thus is not reliable, thereby being far from providing adequate written description for the claimed subject matter with all its claim limitations as required by 35 U.S.C. 112(a).
In view of the foregoing, this rejection is maintained.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
Claims 1-3, 5-12, and 26-28 remain rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ektesabi et al. in view of Kopecheck et al. and Easu et al. for the reasons as set forth in the Office action mailed on August 11, 2025 and for the reasons stated below.
Applicant's arguments filed on February 11, 2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. Applicant argues that the instant claims are not obvious because the examiner established the rejection using “hindsight-based reasoning”. In response to applicant's argument that the examiner's conclusion of obviousness is based upon improper hindsight reasoning, it must be recognized that any judgment on obviousness is in a sense necessarily a reconstruction based upon hindsight reasoning. But so long as it takes into account only knowledge which was within the level of ordinary skill at the time the claimed invention was made, and does not include knowledge gleaned only from the applicant's disclosure, such a reconstruction is proper. See In re McLaughlin, 443 F.2d 1392, 170 USPQ 209 (CCPA 1971).
Applicant argues that there is no motivation to combine the cited references to arrive at the claimed subject matter, in particular, in relation to the “directly inhibits” limitation because one of ordinary skill in the art would have been “discouraged” from “pursuing direct binding and inhibition mechanisms” claimed in the instant case because of Rossato’s teaching pertaining to the indirect targeting/inhibition of IL-6 by a miR-187-3p mimic and further because of “the negative TargetScan predictions”. Applicant further states that the supplemental §1.132 declaration provides evidence that the claimed “wherein” clause limitation pertaining to the direct target inhibition was deemed “unlikely”, thereby “discouraging further investigation.” In response, applicant’s attention is directed to the fact that the claimed “directly inhibits” limitation is recited as a mere functional property of “the miR-187-3p mimic” such that “the miR-187-3p mimic directly inhibits expression of IL-6 or s100a1.” In other words, “directly inhibits expression of IL-6” is recited only in relation to the structure of “the miR-187-3p mimic” that is administered to the sepsis patient. As such, there is no need for a person of ordinary skill in the art to actively “pursue direct binding and inhibition mechanisms”, which are not claimed to be an additional active method step but rather claimed as a mere end result of administering a miR-187-3p mimic, which has the function that “directly inhibits expression of IL-6 or s100a1.” That is, all that is required for one of ordinary skill in the art to arrive at the claimed method is the knowledge pertaining to miR-187-3p mimic’s function of treating sepsis, wherein it is inherent property (as claimed and written) of the miR-187-3p mimic’s structure, absent objective evidence to the contrary. Applicant is correct to the extent that Rossato’s teachings pertaining to the indirect inhibition of IL-6 by a miR-187-3p mimic and the absence of IL-6 as a predicted target of miR-187-3p by TargetScan are not in line with the instantly claimed direct inhibition of IL-6. However, the “wherein” clause limitation recited in the rejected claims are not an additional active method step as explained above, and the limitation is merely descriptive of the unsupported (see the written description rejection above) functional property of the miR-187-3p mimic. In the instant case, applicant did not provide any objective evidence showing that Ektesabi’s miR-187-3p mimic does not and cannot have the inherent functional property of directly binding to and inhibiting IL-6 or S100A1, wherein the recited function of the miR-187-3p remains highly questionable, which will be further discussed below when addressing the §1.132 declarations.
Applicant argues that the examiner’s inherent property rationale pertaining to the prior art’s miR-187-3p mimic is “inconsistent with the governing legal standard.” In so arguing, applicant did not point out any proper legal basis supporting the assertion that the examiner was incorrect. Now, applicant’s attention is directed to MPEP §2112 for the following: “[T]he discovery of a previously unappreciated property of a prior art composition, or of a scientific explanation for the prior art’s functioning, does not render the old composition patentably new to the discoverer.” Atlas Powder Co. v. Ireco Inc., 190 F.3d 1342,1347, 51 USPQ2d 1943, 1947 (Fed. Cir. 1999)… In In re Crish, 393 F.3d 1253, 1258, 73 USPQ2d 1364, 1368 (Fed. Cir. 2004), the court held that the claimed promoter sequence obtained by sequencing a prior art plasmid that was not previously sequenced was anticipated by the prior art plasmid which necessarily possessed the same DNA sequence as the claimed oligonucleotides. The court stated that "just as the discovery of properties of a known material does not make it novel, the identification and characterization of a prior art material also does not make it novel."” (emphasis added). As explained above, the “wherein” clause in the rejected claims is recited strictly in relation to the structure of the miR-187-3p mimic, which was known and available in the prior art. The mere “identification and characterization of a prior art material”, which is Ektesabi’s anti-inflammatory miR-187-3p mimic, and the highly questionable “scientific explanation for the prior art’s functioning” (or “the previously unknown molecular mechanism”) by merely reciting “the miR-187-3p mimic directly inhibits expression of IL-6” does not render the prior art’s use of the anti-inflammatory miR-187-3p mimic that is taught to be useful in treating sepsis patentably new because the prior art’s material necessarily possesses “the same DNA sequence” as the instantly claimed miR-187-3p mimic, absent objective evidence to the contrary.
Applicant argues that the examiner cannot apply the “obvious to try” rationale. The examiner is bewildered by applicant’s argument because an “obvious to try” rationale is nowhere to be found in the last Office action. That is, the instant rejection is not established on an “obvious to try” rationale thus the examiner fails to see any relevance of applicant’s argument.
Applicant argues that the claims are not obvious because of “the surprising and unexpected discovery that miR-187-3p can directly inhibit IL-6” by pointing out the §1.132 declarations and Exhibit A. As noted above, the “discovery of a previously unappreciated property of a prior art composition, or of a scientific explanation for the prior art’s functioning, does not render the old composition patentably new to the discoverer.” In the instant case, the direct inhibition of IL-6 is exclusively claimed as the function of the miR-187-3p mimic. Hence, even if a miR-187-3p mimic were to indeed directly inhibit IL-6 expression as claimed in the instant case, such alleged new discovery of “the previously unknown molecular mechanism” does not render the prior art’s mimic that has “the same DNA sequence” as the instantly claimed mimic patentably new merely because of the recitation of the scientific explanation of the mimic’s anti-inflammatory function, wherein miR-187-3p was already art-recognized to have an anti-inflammatory function that reduces pro-inflammatory cytokine levels as evidenced by Ektesabi and Rossato.
In addition, the declarations under 37 CFR 1.132 filed February 11, 2026, which allegedly support “the previously unknown molecular mechanism” that is being claimed, are insufficient to overcome the instant rejection because of the following reasons:
As an initial matter, is noted that the colors (red, green, yellow) mentioned and allegedly depicted in “Exhibit A” are not shown in the document as submitted to the Office and scanned by the Office. It is also noted on the record that “Exhibit A” does not appear to show the binding sequence (e.g., seed sequence) of the miR-187-3p mimic to the wild-type IL-6 nucleotide sequence, wherein the “Wild-type” IL-6 sequence does not appear to contain the alleged “candidate binding site” that is complementary to the art-recognized seed sequence (5’-CGUGUCU) of miR-187-3p. As such, it is unclear how the declarants are able to state under 18 U.S.C. §1001 that the IL-6 coding sequence that is adjacent to the 3’ UTR contains the binding sequence for miR-187-3p. It is incredibly interesting to note that “Mutant 2” has the nucleotide sequence of “GAGACGCGUACGUAAC”, wherein the experimental results pertaining to the treatment of cells transfected with “Mutant 2” and subsequently treated with miR-187-3p LNP showed little or no inhibition, wherein “Exhibit A” expressly states, “No statistically significant inhibition was observed in the mutant constructs” and that IL-6 inhibition “was abolished in two independent mutant constructs, confirming specificity.” Now, the 7-mer sequence of 5’-AGACGCG (see underlined above) is an art-recognized binding site sequence for miR-187-3p whose seed sequence is 5’-CGUGUCU as objectively shown in the last Office action. See Rossato’s Figures 4A and 5A. That is, the mutated IL-6 “Mutant 2” containing 5’-AGACGCG must be reduced when treated with a miR-187-3p mimic due to the art-recognized interaction; however, the results contained in “Exhibit A” do not show statistically significant inhibition of IL-6 despite the fact that the mutated sequence comprises the art-recognized binding site sequence for miR-187-3p. Hence, in addition to the complete non-disclosure/absence of the miR-187-3p binding site sequence present in the coding region of IL-6 in the declaration and “Exhibit A", the experimental design/results do not appear to make a scientific sense, thereby rendering the instantly claimed functional property of miR-187-3p highly questionable.
The declarants state that the prior art’s mimic’s direct inhibition of IL-6 is not inherent (see paragraph 19-21) without providing any objective, factual evidence showing Ektesabi’s anti-inflammatory miR-187-3p mimic cannot directly inhibit IL-6.
The supplemental declaration is no better than the other declaration. That is, the supplemental declaration, which does not identify the declarant as an expert in the miRNA-relevant research but rather an expert “in the fields of sepsis, trauma, and innate immune responses”, does not provide any better objective, factual evidence that the prior art’s miR-187-3p mimic that is patentably indistinguishable from the instantly claimed miR-187-3p mimic cannot have the recited functional property of directly inhibiting IL-6, wherein such inhibition function is highly questionable as explained above.
Applicant argues that the cited prior art references do not suggest the direct inhibition of s100a1 expression by the claimed miR-187-3p mimic and that s100a1 is not taught as being the target of miR-187-3p, wherein such interaction between miR-187-3p and s100a1 “was not predictable from the prior art” by pointing out the §1.132 declarations. In response, it is noted that the declarations/Exhibit A do not provide any data pertaining to the wild-type S100A1 and sequence-mutated S100A1. Note that S100A1 was not an art-recognized target of miR-187-3p as already explained in the last Office action. In fact, consistent with the examiner’s findings set forth in the last Office action, Figure 8F of the instant application discloses S100A4, not S100A1, as one of the predicted targets of miR-187-3p. Now, regarding the “wherein” clause pertaining to the functional property (or “the previously unknown molecular mechanism”) that the claimed mimic directly inhibits s100a1 expression, it is noted that the function/mechanism limitation is purely written in relation to the structure of the miR-187-3p mimic that is administered to the claimed subject. Hence, since the prior art’s miR-187-3p mimic is structurally indistinguishable from the instantly claimed mimic, absent objective evidence to the contrary, the prior art’s miR-187-3p mimic would inherently possess the functionality of directly inhibiting s100a1 when administered to the claimed subject, absent objective evidence to the contrary.
In view of the foregoing, this rejection is maintained.
Claims 4 and 13-25 remain rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ektesabi et al. in view of Kopecheck et al., Esau et al., Santos et al., Patel et al., Wang et al., and Hao et al. for the reasons as set forth in the Office action mailed on August 11, 2025 and for the reasons stated below.
Applicant's arguments filed on February 11, 2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. Applicant did not provide separate arguments for this rejection. It is noted that applicant’s arguments and the two §1.132 declarations including Exhibit A are not found persuasive as explained hereinabove. Accordingly, this rejection is maintained.
New Rejections Necessitated by Amendment
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
Claims 5-6 are 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. This is a new matter rejection.
Claims 5-6 as currently amended recite “the method is for reducing the risk or severity of myocardial dysfunction.”
The instant specification provides no written description support for the instantly amended limitation newly introduced in claims 5-6, nor did applicant clearly point out where in the specification the new limitation is disclosed in the remarks filed on February 11, 2026.
Accordingly, claims 5-6 introduce new matter that is not supported by the specification as originally filed.
Conclusion
No claim is allowed.
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 nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) 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 or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DANA H SHIN whose telephone number is (571)272-8008. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Thursday: 8am - 6:30pm.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, RAM SHUKLA can be reached at 571-272-0735. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/DANA H SHIN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1635
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