Prosecution Insights
Last updated: July 17, 2026
Application No. 18/840,051

A METHOD AND DEVICE FOR READING DATA FROM A SENSOR

Final Rejection §103
Filed
Aug 20, 2024
Priority
Feb 28, 2022 — GB 2202747.8 +1 more
Examiner
WANG, HARRY Z
Art Unit
2184
Tech Center
2100 — Computer Architecture & Software
Assignee
Vodafone Group plc
OA Round
2 (Final)
83%
Grant Probability
Favorable
3-4
OA Rounds
5m
Est. Remaining
90%
With Interview

Examiner Intelligence

Grants 83% — above average
83%
Career Allowance Rate
263 granted / 318 resolved
+27.7% vs TC avg
Moderate +8% lift
Without
With
+7.7%
Interview Lift
resolved cases with interview
Typical timeline
2y 4m
Avg Prosecution
19 currently pending
Career history
344
Total Applications
across all art units

Statute-Specific Performance

§101
0.5%
-39.5% vs TC avg
§103
87.9%
+47.9% vs TC avg
§102
1.8%
-38.2% vs TC avg
§112
4.7%
-35.3% vs TC avg
Black line = Tech Center average estimate • Based on career data from 318 resolved cases

Office Action

§103
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 . Response to Amendment Claims 1, 6-7, and 15 have been amended. Claim 2 has been cancelled. Claims 1 and 3-19 are currently pending. Response to Arguments Applicant’s arguments with respect to newly amended claim 1 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument. Claim Objections Claim 3 is objected to because of the following informalities: “The method of claim, wherein” in line 1 of claim 3 should read as “The method of claim 1, wherein”. Appropriate correction is required. 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, 3-6, 8-12, and 14-17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kim (US 2019/0034374) in view of Muro (US 2006/0282498) and further in view of Chen (US 2015/0339253). Regarding claim 1, Kim teaches a method of reading data from a sensor (Fig. 6, Processor 602 reads sensor data from sensors 608-616, see Figures 8 and 9 for read request frame), wherein the sensor is selected from one or more sensors that are communicatively connected via an interface (Fig. 6, Sensors 608-616 are connected to processor 602 (i.e. I3C master) via I3C bus and are selected via I3C operation frames; Paragraph 0060, I3C master may be connected to an accelerometer and gyroscope (A & G) sensor 608, a magnetic sensor 610, an ambient light sensor (ALS) 612, a pressure sensor 614, and a capacitive sensor 616… Paragraph 0057, I3C frame… identifies a register to access within the slave to perform an operation), wherein the method comprises: processing a set of instructions (Figs. 8 and 9, Frames 800 and 900, respectively, are an instruction set with start instruction ‘S’, write instruction ‘W’, read instruction ‘R’), wherein the set of instructions comprises a command and a corresponding value for each command (Fig. 8, I3C private read transfer 800 includes a read command ‘R’ and a corresponding value ‘Read Data’; Paragraph 0066, I3C frame 800 may be an I3C private read transfer… and indicates a slave device that an I3C master will communicate with), wherein each command is represented by a data sequence having a first predetermined data length (Fig. 9 shows read command ‘R’ which is a predetermined 1 bit and ‘Slave Address’ which is a predetermined 7 bits is a sequence of data bits), wherein the corresponding value for each command is provided as a data sequence having a second predetermined data length (Fig. 9 shows corresponding command value is ‘Read Data’ which is a predetermined 8 bits; Paragraph 0070, reading one byte of data from a sensor via the normal mode I3C frame 900). Kim does not teach the method of reading data from the sensor comprises: processing a set of instructions, wherein the set of instructions comprises a plurality of commands. Muro teaches the method of reading data from the sensor (Fig. 2, Servers read data from sensors; Paragraph 0057, pieces of observed information collected from the sensor node 207 are sent to the server 203) comprises: processing a set of instructions (Fig. 3, Sensor node 107 receives a partial script 111 that comprises a plurality of parent commands (i.e. root of the partial script 111) and child commands 117 (i.e. originating from the parent command root); Paragraph 0077, a partial script 106 in which the asynchronous command is a root as a partial script 111 to the communication destination node 107), wherein the set of instructions comprises a plurality of commands (Fig. 11, Script of Figure 3 includes a plurality of sequential commands 1201-1205; Paragraph 0149, FIG. 11, an execution sequence of scripts constituted of only synchronous and sequential commands… Paragraph 0150, The script starts execution from a command of a root (parent)… Paragraph 0151, The command executes all child commands). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Kim’s method to incorporate the teachings of Muro and send script instruction sets containing a plurality of commands to the sensors. One of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to make the modifications in order to enable dynamic changing of operation flow and distributed event handling capable of performing multiple operations with reduced overhead, thus adapting to dynamically changing situations in an efficient manner that reduces power consumption and limits load concentration (See Muro: Paragraphs 0013 and 0014). Neither Kim nor Muro teaches the method comprises: wherein the set of instructions comprises at least the following commands: start writing data via the interface, wherein the corresponding value comprises an address of the slave device; and write data to the slave device via the interface, wherein the corresponding value comprises the data to be written to the slave device via the interface. Chen teaches the method comprises: wherein the set of instructions comprises at least the following commands: start writing data via the interface (Fig. 2, Two bit OP code includes the set-address command; Paragraph 0026, MDIO commands defined in Clause 45 of IEEE 802.3 standard include a set-address command with OP=00), wherein the corresponding value comprises an address of the slave device (Fig. 11, Master 1102 transmits a set-address command (i.e. start writing data command) comprising 2 bits with a set-address data value comprising 16 bits that starts writing data to the slave 1104; Paragraph 0026, The data field “DATA” has a 16-bit address data driven by the MDIO master in the set-address operation); and write data to the slave device via the interface (Fig. 2, Two bit OP code includes write command; Paragraph 0026, MDIO commands defined in Clause 45 of IEEE 802.3 standard include a set-address command with OP=00, a write command with OP=01), wherein the corresponding value comprises the data to be written to the slave device via the interface (Fig. 11, Master 1102 sends write command comprising 2 bits with a write data comprising 16 bits after the set-address command (i.e. start writing data command); Paragraph 0026, The data field “DATA” has a 16-bit address data driven by the MDIO master in the set-address operation, a 16-bit write data driven by the MDIO master in the write operation). Kim, Muro, and Chen are analogous arts because they are in the same field of endeavor of transmitting commands between hosts and endpoints. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Kim/Muro’s method to incorporate the teachings of Chen and include set-address, write, and read commands using a first predetermined two-bit data lengths with corresponding value payloads using second predetermined sixteen-bit data lengths. One of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to make the modifications in order to enable enhanced management and configuration of physical addresses to support a wide-range of slave devices (See Chen: Paragraphs 0004 and 0005) while increasing bus utilization functionality such as through burst data transfer operations (See Chen: Paragraphs 0057 and 0059). Regarding claim 3, the combination of Kim/Muro/Chen teaches the method of claim 1. Kim teaches the method comprising wherein the set of instructions comprises a command portion comprising the command and a command value portion comprising the corresponding values for the command (Fig. 9, Frame 900 shows command ‘Slave Address’ and ‘R’ and command value ‘Read Data’), wherein a data length of the command portion is equal to a data length of the corresponding command value portion (Fig. 9, ‘Slave Address’ and ‘R’ is 8 bits (i.e. 1 byte) and ‘Read Data’ is 8 bits (i.e. 1 byte)). Muro teaches the method comprising wherein the set of instructions comprises the plurality of commands (Fig. 11, Script of Figure 3 includes a plurality of sequential commands 1201-1205; Paragraph 0149, FIG. 11, an execution sequence of scripts constituted of only synchronous and sequential commands… Paragraph 0150, The script starts execution from a command of a root (parent)… Paragraph 0151, [rule 2] The command executes all child commands). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Kim’s method to incorporate the teachings of Muro and send scripts containing a plurality of commands to the sensors. One of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to make the modifications in order to enable dynamic changing of operation flow and distributed event handling, thus adapting to dynamically changing situations in an efficient manner that reduces power consumption and limits load concentration (See Muro: Paragraphs 0013 and 0014). Regarding claim 4, the combination of Kim/Muro/Chen teaches the method of claim 3. Kim teaches wherein the set of instructions comprises a plurality of bytes, wherein each command in the set of instructions is represented by exactly one byte of data (Fig. 9, Frame 900 has ‘Slave Address’ and ‘R’ which are 8 bits total (i.e. 1 byte)), wherein the corresponding value of each command comprises exactly one byte of data (Fig. 9, Frame 900 has ‘Read Data’ which is 8 bits (i.e. 1 byte)). Regarding claim 5, the combination of Kim/Muro/Chen teaches the method of claim 1. Muro teaches the method comprising wherein the plurality of commands are provided in a defined order and wherein the method comprises executing the commands in the defined order (Fig. 11, Script of Figure 3 includes a plurality of sequential commands 1201-1205 which must be executed in the defined order; Paragraph 0149, FIG. 11, an execution sequence of scripts constituted of only synchronous and sequential commands… Paragraph 0150, The script starts execution from a command of a root (parent)… Paragraph 0151, [rule 2] The command executes all child commands). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Kim’s method to incorporate the teachings of Muro and send scripts containing a plurality of commands to the sensors. One of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to make the modifications in order to enable dynamic changing of operation flow and distributed event handling, thus adapting to dynamically changing situations in an efficient manner that reduces power consumption and limits load concentration (See Muro: Paragraphs 0013 and 0014). Regarding claim 6, the combination of Kim/Muro/Chen teaches the method of claim 1. Kim teaches the method comprising wherein a read command comprises a corresponding value that is either: a) zero; or b) a length of the data to be read via the interface (Fig. 9, ‘Read Data’ is an 8 bit length of data to be read via I3C). Regarding claim 8, the combination of Kim/Muro/Chen teaches the method of claim 1. Kim teaches the method comprising wherein the one or more sensors are connected in parallel to the interface (Fig. 6, Sensor devices 608-616 are parallel to each other on the I3C bus 606). Regarding claim 9, the combination of Kim/Muro/Chen teaches the method of claim 8. Kim teaches the method comprising wherein the interface is a 2-line bus interface, wherein data is read and written serially to and from the one or more sensors via the interface (Fig. 2, Serial bus 230 is synonymous with interface in Figure 6, 606 and is a 2-line bus for read/write operations; Paragraph 0050, serial bus 230 is operated in accordance with I2C, I3C, or other protocols… Paragraph 0051, a 2-wire serial bus 230 transmits data on a first wire 218 and a clock signal on a second wire 21). Regarding claim 10, the combination of Kim/Muro/Chen teaches the method of claim 1. Kim teaches the method comprising wherein the interface is an Inter-Integrated Circuit, I2C, interface (Fig. 2, Bus 230 is synonymous with the interface in Figure 6 and can be I2C; Paragraph 0050, serial bus 230 is operated in accordance with I2C, I3C, or other protocols). Regarding claim 11, the combination of Kim/Muro/Chen teaches the method of claim 1. Kim teaches wherein the method further comprises executing a control sequence (Fig. 8, I3C read transfer 800 is a control sequence), wherein the control sequence comprises: an address of the sensor on the interface (Fig. 8, Slave address in frame 800); and a memory location (Fig. 8, Register address in frame 800; Paragraph 0066, I3C frame 800 further includes a register address field 804 that is 8 bits long and identifies a register within the slave device that the I3C master intends to access). Muro teaches the method comprising: a memory location of the set of instructions (Fig. 4, Memory 502 is a memory location with the script of commands 509; Paragraph 0088, program read on the memory 502 includes a script manager 404 which is a script execution engine of this invention, a command library 509 which is a set of processing main bodies of commands constituting the script). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Kim’s method to incorporate the teachings of Muro and send scripts containing a plurality of commands to the sensors. One of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to make the modifications in order to enable dynamic changing of operation flow and distributed event handling, thus adapting to dynamically changing situations in an efficient manner that reduces power consumption and limits load concentration (See Muro: Paragraphs 0013 and 0014). Regarding claim 12, the combination of Kim/Muro/Chen teaches the method of claim 11. Muro teaches the method comprising: a memory location of the set of instructions (Fig. 4, Memory 502 is a memory location with the script of commands 509; Paragraph 0088, program read on the memory 502 includes a script manager 404 which is a script execution engine of this invention, a command library 509 which is a set of processing main bodies of commands constituting the script). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Kim’s method to incorporate the teachings of Muro and send scripts containing a plurality of commands to the sensors. One of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to make the modifications in order to enable dynamic changing of operation flow and distributed event handling, thus adapting to dynamically changing situations in an efficient manner that reduces power consumption and limits load concentration (See Muro: Paragraphs 0013 and 0014). Regarding claim 14, the combination of Kim/Muro/Chen teaches the method of claim 1. Muro teaches the method further comprising transmitting data over a data connection to a remote server (Fig. 1, Data connection between sensor node 201 and server 203), wherein the data transmitted over the data connection comprises the data read from the sensor via the interface (Fig. 1, Data is transferred from sensors to servers; Paragraph 0056, many sensor nodes 201, 206 and 207 distributed in environment, integrating/distributing the observed information via a router node 202 connected through radio or wire communication, and collecting the observed information at a center server 203). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Kim/Muro’s method to further incorporate the teachings of Muro and include a remote server for data to be transferred to. One of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to make the modifications in order to enable dynamic changing of operation flow and distributed event handling, thus adapting to dynamically changing situations in an efficient manner that reduces power consumption and limits load concentration (See Muro: Paragraphs 0013 and 0014), while also allowing users to access sensor data from external locations thereby improving the versatility of the system. Regarding claim 15, the combination of Kim/Muro/Chen teaches the method of claim 1. Kim teaches the method comprising wherein the instructions further comprise one or more of the following commands: start reading data via the interface, wherein the corresponding value comprises an address of the sensor; read data from the sensor via the interface (Fig. 8, Read command followed by read data in frame 800; Paragraph 0066, The I3C frame 800 may be an I3C private read transfer); read data from the sensor via the interface and store the read data for transmitting to a remote server via a data connection; read data from the sensor via the interface and do not store the read data; store a data value for transmitting to a remote server via a data connection, wherein the corresponding value comprises the data to be stored and transmitted to the remote server; wait for a period of time before proceeding with the next command in the set of instructions, wherein the period of time comprises a number of intervals of predetermined duration, wherein the corresponding value of the command comprises the number of intervals to wait; loop over a first subset of commands of the set of commands, wherein the corresponding value comprises a number of times to execute the first subset of commands, wherein the subset of commands begins immediately after the loop command; define an end of the loop, wherein the subset of commands ends immediately before the end of loop command; perform a comparison and execute a second subset of commands of the set of commands or break out of a current loop if a predetermined condition is met, wherein the corresponding value defines the predetermined condition, wherein the predetermined condition is selected from: a first number is equal to a second number, a first number is not equal to a second number, a first number is greater than a second number, and a first number is less than a second number, wherein the first number and the second number are defined in a subsequent command; read data from the sensor via the interface and use the data as the first number in the comparison, wherein the corresponding value defines the second number in the comparison; read data from an indicated memory buffer and use the data as the first number in the comparison, wherein the corresponding value defines the second number in the comparison; modify the first number in the comparison by performing a predetermined operation on the first number and a third number, wherein the predetermined operation is selected from: bitwise AND the first number with the third number, bitwise OR the first number with the third number, bitwise XOR the first number with the third number, wherein the third number is defined in a subsequent command; read data from the sensor via the interface and use the data as the third number to modify the first number in the comparison; read data from the sensor via the interface and ignore the read data; define a start of the second subset of commands, wherein the second subset of commands begins immediately after the define command; define an end of the second subset of commands, wherein the second subset of commands ends immediately before the define command; force the script to terminate, without executing subsequent commands; read data from the sensor via the interface and store the read data in a memory buffer, wherein the corresponding value is an address of the memory buffer; write data from a memory buffer to the sensor via the interface, wherein the corresponding value comprises an address of the memory buffer; and clear a memory buffer, wherein the corresponding value comprises an address of the memory buffer to clear (Claim only requires one of the above limitations, see above ‘One OR more’ limitation). Regarding claim 16, the combination of Kim/Muro/Chen teaches the method of claim 1. Kim teaches a device comprising a processor configured to perform the method of claim 1 (Fig. 6, Device with processor 602 performs method using I3C master 604). Regarding claim 17, the combination of Kim/Muro/Chen teaches the device of claim 16. Kim teaches the device further comprising one or more sensors connected to the processor via the interface (Fig. 6, Sensors 608 to 616 connected via I3C bus 606). Claim 7 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kim (US 2019/0034374) in view of Muro (US 2006/0282498) in view of Chen (US 2015/0339253) and further in view of Benjamini (US 2022/0129398). Regarding claim 7, the combination of Kim/Muro/Chen teaches the method of claim 1. Kim teaches the method comprising wherein a length of the data to be read via the interface is defined by the number of consecutive read commands (Fig. 9, ‘Read Data’ defines length of read). Muro teaches the method comprising wherein the set of instructions further comprises one or more further consecutive commands to read data from the sensor via the interface (Fig. 11, Consecutive commands include reading of sensors; Paragraph 0155, First, execution of a root command 1201 is tried. As the command 1201 has child commands 1202 and 1203, execution of the command 1202 is tried. As the command 1202 has child commands 1204 and 1205, execution of the command 1204 is tried… Paragraph 0057, pieces of observed information are collected from these sensor nodes). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Kim’s method to incorporate the teachings of Muro and send scripts containing a plurality of commands to the sensors. One of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to make the modifications in order to enable dynamic changing of operation flow and distributed event handling, thus adapting to dynamically changing situations in an efficient manner that reduces power consumption and limits load concentration (See Muro: Paragraphs 0013 and 0014). The combination of Kim/Muro/Chen does not teach the method comprising wherein the corresponding data comprises null data. Benjamini teaches the method comprising wherein a read command comprises a corresponding value that comprises null data (Fig. 8B, Table includes I2C read start, stop, and acknowledge commands that includes null data 816(2) and 816(4); Paragraph 0045, possible transport data in the second byte 808 may include write data 814 such as a write command and a slave address 814(1), a null field 814(2), an acknowledgment (ACK) or negative ACK (NACK) 814(3), or actual data 814(4) or read data 816 such as a read command and slave address 816(1), a null field 816(2), an ACK and data/NACK 816(3), or a null field 816(4)). Kim, Muro, Chen, and Benjamini are analogous arts because they are in the same field of endeavor of transmitting commands between hosts and endpoints. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Kim/Muro/Chen’s method to incorporate the teachings of Benjamini and include NULL data types when collecting sensor data of Kim. One of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to make the modifications in order to provide the ability to perform sideband management to endpoints (See Benjamini: Paragraphs 0036-0038 and 0045). Claim 13 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kim (US 2019/0034374) in view of Muro (US 2006/0282498) in view of Chen (US 2015/0339253) and further in view of Larson (US 2004/0252642). Regarding claim 13, the combination of Kim/Muro/Chen teaches the method of claim 1. Kim teaches the method comprising wherein the interface is one interface from a plurality of interfaces (Fig. 6, I3C bus 606 fans out towards multiple slaves 608-616 all connected via separate interfaces). The combination of Kim/Muro/Chen does not teach the method comprising wherein the interface is one interface selected from a plurality of interfaces, wherein the control sequence further comprises an identifier of the selected interface. Larson teaches the method comprising wherein the interface is one interface selected from a plurality of interfaces (Fig. 2, I2C router 250 selects one port 253a from plurality of ports 253a-n), wherein the control sequence further comprises an identifier of the selected interface (Fig. 5, Each port 550 and 560 has a port address; Paragraph 0057, Mask 531 provides port addresses for which port 550 can send data. If the port tries to send data to an address not allowed in mask 531, the data will not enter router 570). Kim, Muro, Chen, and Larson are analogous arts because they are in the same field of endeavor of transmitting commands between hosts and endpoints. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Kim/Muro/Chen’s method to further incorporate the teachings of Larson and include an I2C router that selects an I2C port via a port address. One of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to make the modifications in order to provide greater flexibility in the number of devices that can be used on the bus (See Larson: Paragraph 0042) by preventing bus access conflicts (See Larson: Paragraphs 0005, 0009, and 0043). Claims 18 and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kim (US 2019/0034374) in view of Muro (US 2006/0282498) in view of Chen (US 2015/0339253) and further in view of Brown (US 2021/0301985). Regarding claim 18, the combination of Kim/Muro/Chen teaches the device of claim 16. The combination of Kim/Muro/Chen does not teach the device further comprising an antenna for transmitting data via a cellular network to a remote server. Brown teaches the device further comprising an antenna (Fig. 2, Sensor with antenna 220; Paragraph 0064, FIG. 2 shows the internal (i.e., partially or fully inside a housing) components of an example IoT device 200) for transmitting data via a cellular network to a remote server (Fig. 1, Sensor 112 communicates with remote server 160; Paragraph 0061, IoT devices 110-116 may communicate with and directly use the resources of one or more physical, remote server computing devices 160… Paragraph 0062, a communication network can include… a cellular network (e.g., a 3G network, a 4G network, a 5G network). Kim, Muro, Chen, and Brown are analogous arts because they are in the same field of endeavor of transmitting commands between hosts and endpoints. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Kim/Muro/Chen’s method to further incorporate the teachings of Brown and include a remote server for data to be transferred to via a cellular network using an antenna. One of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to make the modifications in order to allow users to access sensor data from external locations thereby improving the versatility of the system and allowing the implementation of an IoT network. Regarding claim 19, Kim in view of Muro teaches the device of claim 16. The combination of Kim/Muro/Chen does not teach the device further comprising a battery. Brown teaches the device further comprising a battery (Fig. 2, IoT device 200 with battery power supply 218; Paragraph 0068, power supply 218 or another energy storage device such as a battery). Kim, Muro, Chen, and Brown are analogous arts because they are in the same field of endeavor of transmitting commands between hosts and endpoints. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Kim/Muro/Chen’s method to further incorporate the teachings of Brown and include a battery source. One of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to make the modifications in order to allow the implementation of an IoT network that can be controlled remotely, thus providing remote monitoring of an area. Citation of Pertinent Art The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Raghavendra (US 2018/0210920) discloses null information in tables of sensors. Conclusion THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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 HARRY Z WANG whose telephone number is (571)270-1716. The examiner can normally be reached 9 am - 3 pm (Monday-Friday). 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, Henry Tsai can be reached at 571-272-4176. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000. /H.Z.W./Examiner, Art Unit 2184 /HENRY TSAI/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2184
Read full office action

Prosecution Timeline

Aug 20, 2024
Application Filed
Jan 09, 2026
Non-Final Rejection mailed — §103
Apr 07, 2026
Response Filed
May 08, 2026
Final Rejection mailed — §103 (current)

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Prosecution Projections

3-4
Expected OA Rounds
83%
Grant Probability
90%
With Interview (+7.7%)
2y 4m (~5m remaining)
Median Time to Grant
Moderate
PTA Risk
Based on 318 resolved cases by this examiner. Grant probability derived from career allowance rate.

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