DETAILED ACTION
This is a final office action on the merits. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (the Office) has received claims 1 -22 in application 18/929,340.
Claims 1-4, 8, 11, 12, 17, 19, and 20 are amended.
Claims 13 and 14 are canceled.
Claims 21 and 22 are new.
Claims 1-22 are pending and have been examined on the merits.
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 Arguments
Applicant’s arguments filed 12/26/2025, with respect to the 101 rejection have been fully considered and are persuasive. The 101 rejection of claims 1-20 has been withdrawn.
Applicant's arguments filed 12/26/2025 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. Jethmalani and Gutierrez-Sheris still teaches the core marketplace flow, however applicant’s amendment adds narrower features directed to selection among a plurality of available blockchains based on context data and lazy minting on the selected blockchain. New prior art is presented in the 103 rejection below to fill in the narrower amended gaps. Please see the rejection below.
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claim(s) 1-22 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Jethmalani (US20230298001A1), in view of Gutierrez-Sheris (US20200396065A1), in view of Vijayan (US20200005284A1), in view of Lee (US20230088674A1), in further view of Meilich (US10946293B1).
Regarding Claims 1, 17, and 20. Jethmalani-in which like the current invention is directed to NFT marketplace transactions using service provider wallets-teaches (in BOLD):
receiving a request, from a user account of a payment service, to transfer ownership of a token to a different user account via the payment service;
Note – The “service provider” maintains user accounts and wallets (i.e., a payment service). Requests between two users of the same provider correspond to an ownership transfer between user accounts within the provider.
Jethmalani - providing a plurality of digital wallets associated with a service provider with access to an NFT marketplace, e.g., NFT marketplace 165 of FIG. 1 (¶ 0104). receiving, from a first user of the service provider, a request to perform a transaction involving a purchase, via the NFT marketplace (¶ 0106). transferring the ownership of the NFT from the second user to the first user by updating an identifier (Claim 11).
determining that the request to transfer ownership of the token meets one or more conditions based at least in part on the user account having a digital wallet to enable blockchain transactions;
Jethmalani - providing a plurality of digital wallets associated with a service provider with access to an NFT marketplace… wallets may be configured to hold NFTs and other types of tokens (¶ 0104). determining that the specified source address corresponds to the service provider (conditional checks tied to wallets/addresses before transfer) (Claim 1). providing a plurality of digital wallets associated with a service provider(¶ 0104). If, however, it is determined in block 706 that the specified source address corresponds to the service provider, process 700 may proceed to block 708. Block 708 includes determining that the NFT is owned by a second user of the service provider who may be associated with a second identifier. The second identifier in this example may be used in block 710 to identify, amongst the plurality of digital wallets associated with the service provider, a second digital wallet that corresponds to the second user (¶ 0108). the transaction processing performed by the service provider may include validation of each transaction and the NFT provisioning status of each user's digital wallet (¶ 0123).
responsive to determining that the request to transfer ownership of the token meets the one or more conditions, generating a listing for sale of the token, the listing for the sale of the token including an auction for bidding on the token by a plurality of user accounts;
Jethmalani - receiving a second request to perform a second transaction involving a sale, via the NFT marketplace, of the NFT now owned by the first user (¶ 0118).
receiving a request to purchase the token by receiving a bid in the auction from another user account of the payment service; and
Jethmalani - receiving, from a first user of the service provider, a request to perform a transaction involving a purchase, via the NFT marketplace, of an NFT associated with a specified source address. The first user in this example may be associated with a first identifier and a first digital wallet of the plurality of digital wallets associated with the service provider and provided in block 702. The specified source address associated with the NFT may be used to identify the current owner of the NFT (¶ 0106).
Jethmalani does not teach, however Gutierrez-Sheris-in which the current invention is directed to addressing blockchain asset auctioning and bid settlement-discloses (in BOLD):
responsive to determining that the request to transfer ownership of the token meets the one or more conditions, generating a listing for sale of the token, the listing for the sale of the token including an auction for bidding on the token by a plurality of user accounts;
Gutierrez-Sheris - An “auction” smart contract may hold an asset pending the completion of the auction, and mediate the handling of bids and payment funds. While the auction is open, bids in the form of currency-backed tokens may be forwarded to the contract (¶ 0798).
receiving a request to purchase the token by receiving a bid in the auction from another user account of the payment service; and
Gutierrez-Sheris - While the auction is open, bids in the form of currency-backed tokens may be forwarded to the contract, which would keep track of the number of bid tokens contributed by each participating account (¶ 0798).
responsive to determining that the request to purchase the token satisfies one or more purchase conditions, initiating lazy minting of the token on the selected blockchain for which minting is deferred, including minting the token at a time determined by the payment service and recording the minted token on the selected blockchain, thereby issuing the token to the other user account.
Gutierrez-Sheris - When the auction is finalized, the winning bid tokens would be forwarded to the original asset token owner's account, the asset token would be forwarded to the winning bidder's originating account, and the loosing bidder's bids would be returned to their accounts (¶ 0798).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the NFT marketplace of Jethmalani with the auction smart contract techniques of Gutierrez-Sheris because doing so allows the marketplace to support auction based NFT sales, bid handling, and a transfer.
The combination of Jethmalani and Gutierrez-Sheris does not disclose, however Vijayan-in which the current invention is directed to selecting among blockchain related options using blockchain conditions-discloses in BOLD:
selecting, based on evaluating context data associated with a plurality of available blockchains, a blockchain of the plurality of available blockchains on which minting of the token is deferred, the context data comprising one or more of user data, preference data, transaction trend data, blockchain data, or social connection data;
Vijayan - the media wallet application is capable of accessing multiple blockchains… For each of these blockchains, the media wallet application can automatically provide a simplified view whereby fungible tokens and NFTs across multiple accounts and/or multiple blockchains can be rendered as a single user profile and/or wallet (¶ 0101).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the NFT marketplace of Jethmalani and the auction smart contract techniques of Gutierrez-Sheris with the blockchain selection of Vijayan because doing so improves the selection of a blockchain.
The combination of Jethmalani, Gutierrez-Sheris, and Vijayan does not disclose, however Lee-in which the current invention is directed to applying constraints or preferences in choosing blockchain related transaction paths-discloses in BOLD:
selecting, based on evaluating context data associated with a plurality of available blockchains, a blockchain of the plurality of available blockchains on which minting of the token is deferred, the context data comprising one or more of user data, preference data, transaction trend data, blockchain data, or social connection data;
Lee - A congestion metric is measured to determine current congestion of the blockchain network (Abstract). the network congestion metric is based on one or more of: a count of unconfirmed transactions on the blockchain network, a rate of receipt of new transactions on the blockchain network, an average age of unconfirmed transactions on the blockchain network, a rate of change in number of unconfirmed transactions over a window of time, a cost measure per computing operation, or a transaction fee (¶ 0013).
responsive to determining that the request to purchase the token satisfies one or more purchase conditions, initiating lazy minting of the token on the selected blockchain for which minting is deferred, including minting the token at a time determined by the payment service and recording the minted token on the selected blockchain, thereby issuing the token to the other user account.
Lee - The event of creation of the NFT and its unique ID may be recorded on the blockchain (¶ 0035).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the NFT marketplace of Jethmalani and the auction smart contract techniques of Gutierrez-Sheris and the blockchain selection of Vijayan with the refining of the blockchain of Lee because doing so improves how the selected blockchain is chosen.
The combination of Jethmalani, Gutierrez-Sheris, Vijayan, and Lee does not disclose, however Meilich-in which the current invention is directed to deferred minting of blockchain tokens before transfer to a user wallet-discloses in BOLD:
selecting, based on evaluating context data associated with a plurality of available blockchains, a blockchain of the plurality of available blockchains on which minting of the token is deferred, the context data comprising one or more of user data, preference data, transaction trend data, blockchain data, or social connection data;
Meilich - the deferral of the token issuance reduces or defers the decentralized network fees until the token is issued to the player's wallet (Column 4. Lines 9-11). If the token does not exist, the token is minted and then transferred to the designated wallet (Column 10, lines 14 and 15).
responsive to determining that the request to purchase the token satisfies one or more purchase conditions, initiating lazy minting of the token on the selected blockchain for which minting is deferred, including minting the token at a time determined by the payment service and recording the minted token on the selected blockchain, thereby issuing the token to the other user account.
Meilich - the deferral of the token issuance reduces or defers the decentralized network fees until the token is issued to the player's wallet (Column 4. Lines 9-11). If and when the player decides to withdraw the game asset from the game, the facilitator sends a message to the centralized game database to determine if the player's game account actually reflects that the player remains in possession of the game asset prior to the transaction. If not, the transaction is denied. If so, the centralized game database locks or otherwise prevents the player from transacting the game asset; and, once this has been done, confirms this with the facilitator. The facilitator communicates with a vault smart contract (detailed below) and the smart contract can mint the token (if it has not already been minted) and transfer the token (whether newly minted or previously existing) to the designated wallet (Column 7, lines 28-41). If the token does not exist, the token is minted and then transferred to the designated wallet (Column 10, lines 14 and 15).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the NFT marketplace of Jethmalani and the auction smart contract techniques of Gutierrez-Sheris and the blockchain selection of Vijayan and the refining of the blockchain of Lee with the deferred implementation of a token of Meilich because doing so allows the token to be minted later on the blockchain and then transferred to the designated wallet.
Regarding Claim 2. The combination of Jethmalani, Gutierrez-Sheris, Vijayan, Lee and Meilich further discloses:
The method of claim 1, further comprising outputting a user interface that displays the plurality of available blockchains.
Vijayan- the media wallet application is capable of accessing multiple blockchains by deriving accounts from each of the various immutable ledgers used within a content engagement platform. For each of these blockchains, the media wallet application can automatically provide a simplified view (¶ 0101).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the NFT marketplace of Jethmalani and the auction smart contract techniques of Gutierrez-Sheris and the blockchain selection of Vijayan and the refining of the blockchain of Lee with the deferred implementation of a token of Meilich because doing so allows the token to be minted later on the blockchain and then transferred to the designated wallet.
Regarding Claim 3. The combination of Jethmalani, Gutierrez-Sheris, Vijayan, Lee and Meilich further discloses:
The method of claim 1, wherein the user interface displays, for individual blockchains of the plurality of available blockchains, at least one of transaction cost information, network congestion information, or digital wallet compatibility information for the blockchain determined from the context data.
Lee - A congestion metric is measured to determine current congestion of the blockchain network (Abstract). the network congestion metric is based on one or more of: a count of unconfirmed transactions on the blockchain network, a rate of receipt of new transactions on the blockchain network, an average age of unconfirmed transactions on the blockchain network, a rate of change in number of unconfirmed transactions over a window of time, a cost measure per computing operation, or a transaction fee (¶ 0013).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the NFT marketplace of Jethmalani and the auction smart contract techniques of Gutierrez-Sheris and the blockchain selection of Vijayan and the refining of the blockchain of Lee with the deferred implementation of a token of Meilich because doing so allows the token to be minted later on the blockchain and then transferred to the designated wallet.
Regarding Claim 4. The combination of Jethmalani, Gutierrez-Sheris, Vijayan, Lee and Meilich further discloses:
The method of claim 3, wherein the user interface further displays a description of at least one of the plurality of available blockchains.
Jethmalani - a graphical user interface (GUI) displayed at the user's device (e.g., client device 110 of FIG. 1 , as described above). The GUI may be used to provide a plurality of options selectable by the user for viewing or showcasing an image associated with the NFT purchased via the NFT marketplace. As shown in FIG. 11 , the image may be displayed in a gallery view 1102 along with images associated with other NFTs in the user's wallet (¶ 0126).
Regarding Claim 5. The combination of Jethmalani, Gutierrez-Sheris, Vijayan, Lee and Meilich further discloses:
The method of claim 1, further comprising detecting that the other user account has purchased a ticket to an event associated with the token and communicating the listing for sale of the token to a computing device associated with the other user account in response to detecting that the other user account has purchased the ticket to the event associated with the token.
Jethmalani - The collected information sent over the Internet for further processing. Typically, IoT devices use a low power network, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, or satellite to connect to the Internet or “the cloud”. Some IoT related issues that blockchain may be able to detect include a lack of compliance in the manufacturing stage of an IoT device. For example, a blockchain may track whether an IoT device was adequately tested (¶ 0096).
Regarding Claim 6. The combination of Jethmalani, Gutierrez-Sheris, Vijayan, Lee and Meilich further discloses:
The method of claim 1, wherein the request to transfer ownership of the token includes information describing a price for a starting bid in the auction.
Jethmalani - the minted governance tokens may be distributed to corresponding digital wallets of the users in the group, including the first user, based on the amount paid or contributed by each user towards the purchase price of the NFT. Accordingly, process 800 may proceed to block 806, which includes determining an amount of a purchase price of the NFT that was paid by each user in the group. In block 808 (¶ 0112).
Regarding Claim 7. The combination of Jethmalani, Gutierrez-Sheris, Vijayan, Lee and Meilich further discloses:
The method of claim 1, wherein issuing the token to the other user account comprises transferring funds from a digital wallet associated with the other user account to the digital wallet associated with the user account.
Jethmalani - the minted governance tokens may be distributed to corresponding digital wallets of the users in the group, including the first user, based on the amount paid or contributed by each user towards the purchase price of the NFT. Accordingly, process 800 may proceed to block 806, which includes determining an amount of a purchase price of the NFT that was paid by each user in the group (¶ 0112).
Regarding Claim 8. The combination of Jethmalani, Gutierrez-Sheris, Vijayan, Lee and Meilich further discloses:
The method of claim 1, wherein issuing the token to the other user account comprises transferring a portion of funds from a digital wallet associated with the other user account to a digital wallet associated with one or more networks hosting the selected blockchain.
Jethmalani - a third-party broker or other entity that is different from the service provider described above. NFT marketplace 165 may be a decentralized application or blockchain-integrated e-commerce website hosted at server 160, which provides an online marketplace for buyers and sellers to purchase and sell NFTs via a corresponding decentralized blockchain (¶ 0033).
Regarding Claim 9. The combination of Jethmalani, Gutierrez-Sheris, Vijayan, Lee and Meilich further discloses:
The method of claim 1, wherein issuing the token to the other user account comprises generating a smart contract associated with the token, wherein the smart contract is configured to limit a number of times the token is permitted to be resold after issuing the token to the other user account.
Jethmalani - As an example, the first user 115 (also referred to as tenant 110) may rent an apartment from the second user 125 (also referred to as landlord 115). A smart contract may be utilized between the tenant 110 and the landlord 115 for payment of the rent. The smart contract may indicate that the tenant 110 agrees to pay next month's rent of $1000 by the 28th of the current month. The agreement may also indicate that if the tenant 110 pays the rent, then the landlord 115 provides the tenant 110 with an electronic receipt and a digital entry key to the apartment (¶ 0087).
Regarding Claim 10. The combination of Jethmalani, Gutierrez-Sheris, Vijayan, Lee and Meilich further discloses:
The method of claim 1, wherein issuing the token to the other user account comprises generating a smart contract associated with the token, wherein the smart contract is configured to cause a portion of proceeds from a resale of the token to be transferred to the digital wallet associated with the user account.
Jethmalani - The income associated with the asset may include, for example, royalties that are earned from the sale or resale of the NFT or fractional share thereof. For example, digital wallets of the plurality of digital wallets associated with the service provider (e.g., as provided in block 702 of FIG. 7 , as described above), which correspond to the users in the group may be identified. A total income earned by the digital asset over time, e.g., over any predetermined or user-specified time period, may be determined and then distributed to the identified digital wallets in proportion to the governance tokens in each of the identified digital wallets (¶ 0115).
Regarding Claim 11. The combination of Jethmalani, Gutierrez-Sheris, Vijayan, Lee and Meilich further discloses:
The method of claim 1, wherein the token grants an individual having possession of the token in a digital wallet of the individual access to an event.
Jethmalani - Both the execution of the smart contract and the purchase of the new carton may be recorded in the blockchain. In some cases, the condition may be an occurrence of an event, such as a need or anticipated need, or convenience factors, such as a delivery day, cost, promotions, or incentives (¶ 0097).
Regarding Claim 12. The combination of Jethmalani, Gutierrez-Sheris, Vijayan, Lee and Meilich further discloses:
The method of claim 11, wherein the token grants the individual having possession of the token in the digital wallet of the individual access to a unique experience associated with the event.
Jethmalani - As would be apparent to one of skill in the art in possession of the present disclosure, a fungible token is a token that is indistinguishable from another token of the same type while a non-fungible token (NFT) is a unique token that can be distinguished from another token. A token that implements the ERC-994 standard and the ERC-994 standard may be considered non-fungible and may be hierarchical with other tokens that implement the ERC-994 standard (¶ 0101).
Regarding Claim 15. The combination of Jethmalani, Gutierrez-Sheris, Vijayan, Lee and Meilich further discloses:
The method of claim 1, wherein the auction includes an option to purchase the token for a fixed price.
Jethmalani - the minted governance tokens may be distributed to corresponding digital wallets of the users in the group, including the first user, based on the amount paid or contributed by each user towards the purchase price of the NFT. Accordingly, process 800 may proceed to block 806, which includes determining an amount of a purchase price of the NFT that was paid by each user in the group (¶ 0112).
Regarding Claim 16. The combination of Jethmalani, Gutierrez-Sheris, Vijayan, Lee and Meilich further discloses:
The method of claim 1, wherein determining that the request to purchase the token satisfies the one or more purchase conditions comprises determining that the other user account has purchased a ticket to an event associated with the token.
Jethmalani - At step 682, based on determining that the received notification satisfies the conditions needed to trigger execution of the various terms of the smart contract, the process 600B proceeds to step 684. However, at step 682, if it is determined that the received notification does not satisfy the conditions needed to trigger execution of the smart contract, then the process 600B returns to step 678 (¶ 0092).
Regarding Claim 18. The combination of Jethmalani, Gutierrez-Sheris, Vijayan, Lee and Meilich further discloses:
The system of Claim 17, wherein the one or more processors are configured to issue the token to the other user account by transferring funds from a digital wallet associated with the other user account to the digital wallet associated with the user account.
Jethmalani - As shown in FIG. 7 , process 700 begins in block 702, which includes providing a plurality of digital wallets associated with a service provider with access to an NFT marketplace, e.g., NFT marketplace 165 of FIG. 1 , as described above. The plurality of digital wallets may correspond to, for example, different users of the service provider. The NFT marketplace in this example may correspond to a decentralized blockchain associated with an entity that is different from the service provider (¶ 0104).
Regarding Claim 19. The combination of Jethmalani, Gutierrez-Sheris, Vijayan, Lee and Meilich further discloses:
The system of claim 17, wherein the one or more processors are configured to issue the token to the other user account by transferring a portion of funds from a digital wallet associated with the other user account to a digital wallet associated with one or more networks hosting the selected blockchain.
Jethmalani - the minted governance tokens are distributed to the corresponding digital wallets of the users in the group in proportion to the amount paid by each user in the group for the purchase of the NFT. While not shown in FIG. 8 , it should be appreciated that process 800 (e.g., in block 804, 806, or 808) may also include determining which users are in the group and identifying the corresponding digital wallet of each user determined to be in the group (¶ 0112).
Regarding Claim 21.
The method of claim 1, wherein selecting the blockchain comprises: determining current minting fees and one or more processing fees for a plurality of available blockchains, and selecting a blockchain having a lower combined fee relative to other blockchains.
Lee - A congestion metric is measured to determine current congestion of the blockchain network (Abstract). the network congestion metric is based on one or more of: a count of unconfirmed transactions on the blockchain network, a rate of receipt of new transactions on the blockchain network, an average age of unconfirmed transactions on the blockchain network, a rate of change in number of unconfirmed transactions over a window of time, a cost measure per computing operation, or a transaction fee (¶ 0013).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the NFT marketplace of Jethmalani and the auction smart contract techniques of Gutierrez-Sheris and the blockchain selection of Vijayan and the refining of the blockchain of Lee with the deferred implementation of a token of Meilich because doing so allows the token to be minted later on the blockchain and then transferred to the designated wallet.
Regarding Claim 22.
The method of claim 1, wherein selecting the blockchain comprises: limiting the selection to blockchains in a predetermined list of approved blockchains for at least one of the buyer or the seller, and prioritizing a blockchain used in similar transactions by social network contacts.
Vijayan - NFTs can be minted by any of a number of content creators 204 that have been granted access to a minting service or NFT registry service that is typically provided by a content engagement platform administrator 205. The content creators 204 can be authenticated by the content engagement platform to confirm that the content creator holds the necessary intellectual property rights to mint an NFT with respect to a particular character and/or piece of content. Examples of content creators can include (but are not limited to) record labels, movie studios, restaurants, retail stores, brands, sports franchises, and/or celebrities. An administrator of the content engagement platform can vet an applicant prior to approval as a content creator 204. Once approved, the content creator 204 can be provided with the right to cryptographically sign NFTs and access an account in which royalty payments can be deposited based upon residual royalty rules specified within the smart contracts underlying NFTs minted by the content creator 204. In many embodiments, the minting of an NFT involves the smart contract underlying the NFT being cryptographically signed by the content creator 204 and a content engagement platform administrator 205 (¶ 0084).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the NFT marketplace of Jethmalani and the auction smart contract techniques of Gutierrez-Sheris and the blockchain selection of Vijayan and the refining of the blockchain of Lee with the deferred implementation of a token of Meilich because doing so allows the token to be minted later on the blockchain and then transferred to the designated wallet.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Moy et al. (US20230188349A1) - Systems and methods for issuance and management of non-fungible tokens are disclosed. In one embodiment, a method for issuing non-fungible tokens may include: (1) receiving, by a computer program executed by a non-fungible token as a service (NFTaaS) computer program and from a NFTaaS user interface, a minting request to mint a non-fungible token (NFT), wherein the minting request comprises content for the NFT and a plurality of NFT attributes; (2) identifying, by the NFTaaS computer program, a deployed smart contract for the plurality of NFT attributes; (3) minting, by the NFTaaS computer program, the NFT according to the NFT attributes using the identified deployed smart contract; and (4) deploying, by the NFTaaS computer program, the NFT to a distributed ledger.
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 CHRISTINA C whose telephone number is (571)270-7280. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Friday from 8am to 5pm.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Patrick Mcatee, can be reached at telephone number 571-272-7575. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/C.C.S./Examiner, Art Unit 3698
/PATRICK MCATEE/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3698
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