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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 3/17/2026 has been considered by the examiner.
Election/Restrictions
Applicant's election of Group I and Species A, Claims 1-3, without traverse in the reply filed on 06/22/2026 is acknowledged.
Claim Objection
Claims 1-2 are objected to because of the following informalities:
Claim 1: please amend “a portion of a molecule” to -- a portion of [[a]] the molecule--.
Claim 2: please amend “and second tag” to – and a second tag--.
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1-3 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as failing to set forth the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant regards as the invention.
Regarding claim 1, claim 1 recites “passing a portion of [[a]] the molecule through the nanopore in a membrane” and “measuring an electrical signal during the signal integration period as the molecule passes through the nanopore”, which is unclear if only a portion of the molecule passing through the nanopore or the entire molecule passing through the nanopore. Therefore, the scope of claim 1 is indefinite. Claims 2-3 are further rejected by virtue of their dependence upon and because they fail to cure the deficiencies of indefinite claim 1.
Conclusion
The prior arts made of record and not relied upon are considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure: Winters-Hilt et al. (US20090054919A2) teaches alytical tools and methods employing processing of channel current blockade measurements to detect and assess interactions between a blockade-producing auxiliary molecule in the channel and either the surrounding conductive medium generally or molecules in that conductive medium, wherein the effective duty cycle for acquiring 100 ms blockade measurements, when found to be sufficient for classification purposes, is adjusted to approximately one reading every 0.4 seconds by choice of analyte concentration (abstract and [para. 0081]). Winters-Hilt (Nanopore detector based analysis of single0molecule conformational kinetics and binding interactions, BMC Bioinformatics, 2006, 7, S21) teaches a nanopore detector for DNA sequencing and single nucleotide polymorphism analysis (abstract), wherein the duty cycle is adjusted by choice of analyte concentration (section of Data acquisition). Emory (Single- molecule detection of unique genome signatures: applications in molecular diagnostics and homeland security, PhD thesis of Louisiana state university, 2009) teaches the duty cycle of the measurement is: duty cycle=tint/T, where tint is the signal accumulation time and T=tint+trd where trd is the readout time. Wanunu (Nanopores: a journey towards DNA sequencing, Physics of life reviews, 2012, 9, 125-158) reviews nanopore-based DNA sequencing.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SHIZHI QIAN whose telephone number is (571)272-3487. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Thursday 8:00 am-5:00 pm.
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, Luan V. Van can be reached on (571) 272-8521. 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.
/SHIZHI QIAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 1795
Prosecution Insights